Is a PC at a Cafe a Gambling Machine?

[Meta Blog]

We will start a petition against the crazy suggestion to label every computer at a café as a gambling machine. We have a couple of computers for our guests / club members that are designated for educational purposes, e.g., learning how to use different Microsoft software programs. But, theoretically speaking, every PC, laptop, mobile phone, is a potential gaming / gambling machine according to this new court case. What will be the next step?

From The Register:

An internet café in Örebro in Sweden has been closed after the local council argued that its twelve PCs were occasionally used for gambling and it therefore needed a gaming permit.

When protesting didn't help and both the country administrative board and the administrative court ruled in favor of the cafe, the case was taken to the administrative court of appeal in Jönköping, which yesterday ruled that a PC - even in an internet café - automatically becomes a gaming machine if someone plays games with a financial stake on it. (theregister.co.uk, 06/01/06.)

I ask the same question as The Local: When's a computer not a computer?

Blue Chip Café, Gothenburg, Sweden.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/000926.html