Mohawks start up Canada's first Web gambling server

People on the Kahnawake Reserve near Montreal are planning to provide the first computer server in North America to make Internet gambling available to the public. It's a complicated arrangement and not without controversy.

Some might say it was inevitable that, eventually, someone in Canada would think of it. The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake say it was for one good reason: money.

"I think the potential is uncapped," says Davis Rice of Mohawk Internet Technologies. "It's like an oil well and for the time being it's ready to explode."

The Internet has hundreds of gambling sites. They originate with companies based in the Caribbean, mostly, and are accessed by Canadian computers through international servers.

The Mohawk decided to become a server for the Internet casinos because nobody else in Canada is doing it. There's big money to be made. But there are also ethical questions to face. On the reserve, the question looms: are they encouraging gambling?

Five years ago, Kahnawake tore itself apart over the issue of opening a casino. In a referendum, people voted it down -- but just barely.

Some are not worried, arguing the project is not an on-line casino, it's just a distributor, like a television cable company.

That's a moot point for groups worried about the growing phenomenon of gambling addiction.

"What you're doing is making it easily accessible to a certain percentage of individuals who have a significant problem," says Jeffrey Derevensky, McGill University Gambling Treatment Centre.

At the reserve, all arguments against the plan are outweighed by one fact: 51 new jobs will be created. The hope is the new company will provide jobs for generations, eventually becoming the Internet server for large Canadian corporations.

Business opens next month.