When they’re not sitting around doing nothing while collecting government pensions or rioting and burning down cars and looting stores because of anger at losing those pensions, Greeks love to gamble online. At least, that’s what the government is counting on, because they have drafted new online gambling legislation that would regulate the industry within their borders.

The Greek government, in an attempt to add revenue to a nation being crippled by debt and a workforce that isn’t used to actually working for their money, has introduced legislation that would legalize online gambling in the country but require offshore online casinos, sports books and poker rooms to acquire licenses from the Greek government. In addition, the online gambling companies would have to set up servers in Greece, process their financial transactions within the country and operate using a Greek domain name.

All of those moves are intended to bring money that Greeks are currently spending on foreign operators back into the economy. It’s a small fix, but every little thing counts when you’re facing total economic collapse, so I wouldn’t expect the legislation to get a lot of opposition within the Greek government.

The online gambling legislation would also allow the Greek government to block the ISP of any foreign online gambling website that did not obtain a license and meet their other requirements. In addition, it would allow the government to stop and prosecute any illegal online gambling transactions involving Greek citizens.

The online gambling legislation is scheduled for debate this month and if passed, has a target date of May 2011 for full implementation.