Over a decade ago, products such as Party Poker and Party Casino started providing the ability for punters to take a bet, and to do this online. At the time this industry was frowned up by the US Government, but they could not do much about it. Offshore websites were being licensed in Kahnawake, The Virgin Island and Caribbean territories and this kind of made them legal, but also untouchable.

However, the US Government got their thinking caps on and came up with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). This was promulgated virtually overnight and it effectively banned online gambling, by making payment transactions illegal through the auspices of an out-dated Wire Act from way back in 1961.

Now Nevada is the First US state to make online gambling legal, even despite the fact that UIGEA is still in force. The Department of Justice had a change of opinion on the basis of the act, and now interprets it as only online sports betting being illegal. The Federal Government has made it clear that States may decide themselves on whether or not to make online gambling legal.
Nevada has forged ahead and the first legal online gaming in the US will be online poker. Experts are of the opinion that Nevada is now equipped to lead the way with the US online gambling revolution.

Being a multi-billion dollar mainstream industry, the regulation and legalization of online gambling can have a huge business, and beneficial fiscal impact on the US economy. There is also the argument that online poker should be classified a game of skill rather than a gambling game, so, this makes it so much more attractive. If you think that since UIGEA was enacted – $72 billion has left the hands of online gamblers in the US and gone into offshore (foreign) pockets; Federal and state-wide coffers are losing out on a great deal of taxable revenue.

It is not easy to understand UIGEA, there are a ton of grey areas, but basically what it does is stop interstate wire exchanges of money. However, foreign money exchange is not a problem, although it’s becoming tougher as less of the reputable online casino will accept players from the US. While there is more than one way of skinning a cat, this becomes more complex as technology advances.

Gamblers like to play online, there have always been gambling games and a punter will bet on anything if they think they have a chance of winning. Basically, no matter how hard the US government buries their head in the sand, online gambling is not going to just go away. Prohibition has never worked and we see now that it never will. Nevada has the opportunity to get a leading edge in what ostensibly could become a very lucrative industry. All they have to do is keep leading the way. Battle it through the red tape and pave the way for other US states. Other states are going to want to hang onto their coat-tails.

Online Gambling’s Legislative Change Sparks Fear In The Mind Of A Nation As Internet Gaming Set To Spread Across The US By End Of 2012.

As 2012 began and people discussed the significance of the Chinese year of the dragon commencing, the USA was faced with the likelihood that for them, 2012 would become the year of the gambler. As the US Justice Department changed its stance on the 1961 Federal Wire Act, a change in legislation which meant that US states would now legally be allowed to run and operate their own independent online gaming sites which would include the sale of lottery tickets via the internet.

This change in legislation has seen the online gaming revenue soar to new heights in a short period of time, so far as it has been found to amass a minimum $12 billion dollar more than the previously accumulated $62.5 billion gained from state lottery ticket sales.

Yet, while US states’ celebrate the money they’ll soon be bathing in, from having their lotteries and casinos join the 21st century and go viral, those who remain firm supporters of the 1961 Federal Wire Act shake their heads in disgust as they are forced to contemplate what the repeal of such law means to their fellow citizens.
It was a growing concern amongst those opposed to repealing the 1961 act that allowing states to make their lotteries and casinos readily available online to all US citizens was the equivalent of the government legalising crack cocaine for drug addicts.

This notion brought about by the repeals opposition has been backed most fervently by gambling experts who have claimed that the growing expansion of online gambling across the USA should be of great concern to the nation as around 3% of the entire population of the USA is at a greater risk of developing a serious gambling addiction as a result of its legalisation.

Nevertheless, government officials have rebuked all claims that changing their stance on the 1961 Federal Wire Act law has made online gambling legal in anyway shape or form. They have held the opinion that online gambling is and has always been the responsibility of the individual state and that it is up to that local governing body to regulate and oversee any online gambling operation being conducted within their borders. The repeal of the 1961 act was not in any way to make gambling legal within the United States, but to give local government the opportunities to augment their economy by opening up an interstate gambling establishment if they so wish.

Additionally, the Department of Justice has continuously reiterated that their decision to repeal the 1961 Federal Wire Act is not final, as they lack the authority necessary that The United States’ Supreme Court has to repeal and quash a legislative act permanently. As such, any decision that the Department of Justice makes which the US Supreme Court finds to be against the best interest of the US and its citizens may be repealed at anytime.

In 2010 UK gaming site woke up and rejoiced as news broke out that the four year ban which had been imposed upon US online gamblers was soon to be lifted as per the government’s reviews of its 2006 legislations and its prohibition of online real money betting.

As the 2006 legislation was enforce in September of 2006 across the USA, the UK’s multibillion pound gambling industry came close to collapse at the overnight loss of one of its largest online clients.

And, with the economy well on its downward spiral already, the last thing the British economy system needed was another attack on its annual revenue income.
Yet the loss of the US players to such profitable and reliable UK gaming sites like 888 Limited and Party Gaming meant that their shares saw a drastic drop of between 26% and 54% for each site respectively which equated to an overall loss of £4billion in stock shares.

And whilst the UK tried and failed to make the best of a bad situation by exploring wider gaming opportunities further afield than the scope of the US, nothing has been able to come close to the amount of revenue that US patronage produced which has in turn meant the inability of the gaming industry to recover fully from the revenue deficit the loss of the US backing cost.
However with the repeal on the mind of many a US governing body, a new hope was instilled amongst a struggling yet slowly re-growing online gaming industry as that age old controversial discussion on whether or not online gambling should be made legal was once again sparked off.

Nevertheless whilst UK and US Online Gambling supporters remained hopeful that the band would soon be lifted, expert predicted a drastic stall in repeal proceeding as midterm elections swept the nation and seats changed hands.

Yet when the stall experts predicted finally did came it was a surprised that its consequence was not that of any governmental election taking place, but rather that of the US states realising that the same legislations they had been abiding by and upholding since the 1961 Federal Wire Act could actually be used to help their own internal state economy without having to seek legal online gambling in overseas places like the UK.

Once again, the UK along with the rest of Europe were left to weigh the pros and cons of the US government lifting the ban on online gambling in the USA and realising the possible negative implications that lifting such a ban would have on their economy if US casinos and gaming halls chose to exploit this new freedom and establish themselves as rival gaming providers for US players within the actual US.

Two years on from the initial discussion to quash the 2006 prohibition of online gambling legislation in the US back in 2010, and still no decision has as yet come to fruition as the online gambling US drought continues.