The NDP government had planned to address online gambling in a new gaming strategy this fall or winter, but Dexter said he wanted to clear up any ambiguity about the government’s direction.

That form of gambling isn’t "consistent with our goal to try to reduce the harm that is done by gaming," he said.

"So this is another avenue of gaming, but not one that we’re going to participate in."

Finance Minister Graham Steele, who is responsible for the Nova Scotia Gaming Corp., had indicated in the summer that the province should get involved.

"For those who say that the government shouldn’t be there, I just say I cannot consider it to be responsible to leave problem gamblers to the mercy of illegal unregulated offshore gambling sites, many of which are thought to be fronts for organized crime. Why is that the right answer?" Steele said on CBC Radio in August.

"I think, as a government that is responsible under the Criminal Code of Canada for gambling policy, our responsibility is to be there and to bring our resources to that task."

Steele said Thursday he has changed his mind on online gambling. He said a conversation with Saint Mary’s University professor John McMullan, an Internet gambling expert, about current information was a key factor.

"I have changed my mind as a result of listening to people," Steele said.

"I think the thing that struck me, personally, the most was the idea that if we participate in online gambling, we would get people into gambling who otherwise wouldn’t, as opposed to simply taking people who are already gambling online and getting them on a local, regulated Internet gambling site."

McMullan couldn’t be reached Thursday.

The Atlantic Lottery Corp. has pointed to a consultant’s estimate of $50 million a year leaving the region through more than 2,000 unregulated Internet gambling sites.

Steele, grappling with a $203-million deficit this year, said there’s no way to predict how much money the province could earn from online gambling.

"Any estimate of how much revenue was simply a wild guess," he said.

Marie Mullally, CEO of the Nova Scotia Gaming Corp., said in a speech last week that online gambling will grow whether or not the government is involved.

Steele said the government is trying to "puzzle through" how to deal with that reality and will look at doing more to educate people on the issue.

Liberal gaming critic Leo Glavine, whose party has opposed government-sanctioned Internet gambling, said he thinks the Dexter government was looking to change the channel after a couple of weeks of dissension within caucus over the decision to partially fund the proposed Halifax convention centre.

"There have been a number of areas the NDP have struggled with in recent weeks, and sometimes you like to get out what is generally a good-news story in the midst of some chaos and perhaps a little bit of an internal crisis around the convention centre," the Kings West MLA said.

He also said he thinks the NDP is trying to restore some of its credibility on gambling issues after refusing earlier this year to release a draft report on the socio-economic impact of gambling.

Tory gaming critic Alfie MacLeod said his caucus also supports the NDP’s decision not to offer Internet gambling.

"Although you may be able to access online gambling, there’s no reason for us to make it that much easier," he said.

Kerry Chambers, an official with the Nova Scotia Gaming Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that funds research into problem gambling, said the decision is the most important one the provincial government has made on gambling since getting into the video lottery terminal business in the 1990s.

"It’s essential that before any changes to gambling are made in the province, that impartial experts would demonstrate that at minimum it wouldn’t increase gambling harm and it would be acceptable to the public," Chambers said.

"That evidence is not available currently."