In a move that might end up making it the second province in Canada to go down this road, legislators in the Ontario government are now starting to look at the prospects surrounding the legalization of online gambling.

Premier Dalton McGuinty is well aware that the province has a deficit of nearly $25 billion and therefore it also aware that the issue of online poker and gambling is one that needs to be looked at because of the potential revenue flow that could be gleaned from the legalization of online gambling services and venues.

Paul Godfrey, the CEO of the National Post newspaper and the current head of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission, has agreed that online gambling should be legalized, regulated and taxed within the province. He correctly noted that money is spent by Ontarians and flows out of the province because of their lack of online gambling legalization.

While online gambling is technically legal within the province, the government has not endorsed it as a home-grown industry to this point and that is what has resulted in the exodus of dollars and GDP points from the province. If the government of Ontario started encouraging the development of in-province online gambling institutions, it could recoup a lot of those tax dollars and do a lot towards shaving some money off of the deficit in which the province finds itself.

However, there are opponents to this particular approach. Chief amongst them are the people that feel that schools have not adequately prepared young people against the perils of online gambling and therefore feel that the young people in the province are prone to addiction with online gambling in a way that they are not because of education programs in place dealing with sex, alcohol and drugs.

It is an interesting debate, to be sure. It is also a debate that is likely to continue for some time as the cogs of the government turn ever so slowly. In the end though, a decision to encourage online gambling site creation at home would lift the last bit of stigma on internet gambling legalization in Ontario and make it a done deal.