Internet Gambling Surpression
Originally posted November 2nd, 2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed on 3th October 2006
By prohibiting U.S. Banks and other financial institutions from processing gambling transactions, the intent of the bill is to make it extremely difficult for U.S. citizens to gamble online.
The immediate fall out is that the most of the publicly traded casino companies have announced that they are quitting the U.S. market along with Playtec and Cryptologic.
If your favourite casino is powered by either Playtec or Cryptologic, it is a fair bet that your casino will be quitting the U.S. market.
Interestingly this legislation does not make it illegal for citizens to gamble online.It merely seeks to emasculate the cash flow to the casinos.
A number of casino groups have indicated that they are remaining in the U.S. Market and are accepting new players from all states in the U.S. and a few others have decided to accept players from most states in the U.S. with the exception of Illinois ,Indiana , Louisiana , Michigan , Nevada,Oregon , South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.
You can acess a list of online casinos where you can still play your favourite games at Online Casinos
The regulators have up to 270 days from the date of the signing of the bill to formulate the regulations to restrict cash flow. Whilst many have made educated guesses at what form these will take, no one really knows. Many of the banks are saying that they cannot tell for what purpose money is being transferred to non U.S. based online payment gateways.
The largest of these, Neteller, a Canadian based company, initially said it was business as usual and a few days later they said they would comply with the new laws. It remains to be seen as to how many of these non U.S. based payment gateways fall into line with the new regulations. For some casinos to publicly state that they will continue to provide services to new and existing U.S. customers suggests that they have received confidential undertakings from some of these non U.S. payment gateways to continue providing financial transactions for onlinr casinos.
In the short term it looks like the number of online casinos and poker rooms offering services to U.S. clients will shrink from several thousand to maybe less than 100.
The burning question is this - Is this a cynical exercise to appease the bible belt during the current election campaign and afterwards there will be a little tinkering around the edges of the current cash flow restrictions that may make the transfer of funds to casinos a little more difficult but otherwise it will be business as usual for the online casinos and poker rooms that decide to tough it out?
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