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What is Illegal Offshore Gambling |
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Monday, 11 June 2007 |
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The first thing you need to realize is that online gambling is illegal. If you participate in offshore gambling you could go to jail. The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act is designed to update the Wire Act, which makes it illegal to place a bet over the phone, and make it applicable to internet gambling. If this new law goes into effect it will be illegal to gamble over the internet in the US. This law will also target offshore gambling sites catering to US citizens.
The penalties for violation of this law will be raised from two to five years in jail. This law has been introduced a few times prior to this, but the house did not pass it. The failure of this law to be passed allows internet offshore gambling to thrive and grow into what is a 12 billion dollar business.The message is that gambling is a bad thing, and that is why it should only be allowed across state lines, and this bill does nothing to limit the rights of each state to authorize gambling inside their borders. If this law is meant to stop money from being lost to offshore gambling in foreign countries, why is internet gambling banned from the US? There are advertisements on TV quite frequently encouraging everyone to come to Las Vegas, and visit Atlantic City. The WTO has ruled that the US is not allowed to block online, offshore gambling sites. If this bill did pass the US would be liable to sanctions from the WTO. You may want to know why online offshore gambling is illegal. Bodog Entertainment Group is at odds with the US Department of Justice because it is involved with online offshore gambling. This site accepts bets from over 16 million customers, most of them US citizens. The owner of the site does not seem too concerned over the illegality of offshore gambling. Last year Bodog handled in excess of 7 billion wagers, online. The total amount realized $210 million in sales and gave the owner a net worth of at least $1 billion. With the insurgence of the American Indian Casinos, many US citizens are able to gamble close to home. As long as they are on reservation land the anti gambling laws do not apply to them. The city of Detroit was granted a license to gamble by, then governor John Engler, because of it’s poor economy, and has put up a few casinos in the past few years. If it is okay for Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Detroit to have casinos why is it not okay for the rest of the states to participate in gambling? |
