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7 Dec 2006
Following the latest Congress legislation against online casinos, the whole online gambling industry is searching for ways to keep the American players on the game. As a reminder, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act does not prohibit gambling in online casinos, but it does stop credit card companies and banks from funding financial transactions that are related to it. By taking into account that the American market makes up for more than half of the online gambling’s industry annual revenues, it is pretty clear why it is so important to keep it going.
The British government has been one of the first to try to save the online casinos situation, by organizing a conference aimed at setting a clear code of regulation regarding online casinos. “The US ban has hit the industry pretty bad” said Tessa Jowell, Britain’s Culture Secretary, “but as the Internet is a global place, we intend to treat is globally”. Unfortunately, the pressure didn’t really help and the US didn’t even show up to the conference.
But not everything looks bad for online casinos. Most chances are that the US ban won’t really work, or just be weakly enforced. It will be virtually impossible to keep the Americans away from more than 2,000 existent online casinos, even if the banks and credit cards fully cooperate with the law. “Prohibitions are known not to be too effective, and this one is no different” says Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance, hoping to give to millions of Americans a bit of hope.
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