Lifeline Of The USA Internet Gambling Law
In 1996 we were treated to an explosion of online casinosthat swept thru the world. The United States saw a tremendous increase in both online casinos and players. This huge increase of online players worried the land-based casino owners so they lobbied to have it stopped or at best slowed down. They realized if this pace continued they would see more of a decrease in profits. So they lobbied Congress hard and in 2006 The USA passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (or UIGEA).
The UIGEA act prohibited all of the banks and payment processors from processing any type of transactions in connection with online gambling. This created a problem for gamblers in loading and withdrawing money from their online accounts. While the companies continued to operate they had to use payment processors that could bypass such restrictions. Despite all of these laws related to online gambling, some online casinos continued to accept gamblers from the USA.
Conversely, most of the bigger online brands left the USA market, the alternatives for players became quite limited. Many said it was very difficult to find a good online casino. Alot of reviews sites began to pop up that directed players to the sites they so desperately looked for. Some of those sites were superior to others, nevertheless they served the need that was created. Shortly after the market started to stabilize and gamblers were playing online again, Black Friday hit the online gambling world.
Quite a few casinos had found a way around the deposit and withdrawal problems and the online gambling world was growing yet again. Many began to feel invincible to this new law. The federal government was not really enforcing it and it appeared like they had no intentions of doing so. This was certainly a false sense of security for both the gamblers and online casinos. April 15, 2011, will be remembered in history as the day the online gambling industry was punished and punished hard. It was the beginning of a new era. The United States Department of Justice charged the principals of the three largest poker sites Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker with bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses, and laundering billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds. The DOJ seized their internet domain names along with their funds. Instantly many US gamblers were not just left with nowhere to gamble and no way to recuperate their funds.
Black Friday forced many more gambling brands to leave the USA Market. Everyone was once again scrambling to find new places to gamble, worried when they would ever get their money back, and wondering if anybody would stay in the United States market. A major blow was struck to online gambling and many people wondered if it would survive. Again the review sites played a major role in finding places for players to play. Now the market was very limited and it was a struggle to find online sites. Once again the market slowly started to stabilize and things settled down a bit. The market was damaged but survived.
Another major event was Gray Monday. Grey Monday saw more internet domain names and gambling operations seized. There was clearly two main disparities with these seizures. This time both large and small sites were seized. Many different sectors in the industry were seized including online poker, casinos, sports books and bingo. Basically nobody was safe now. Now the size of the organization did not matter anymore. Nor did the industry you were in. This round of seizures was felt by everyone throughout the gambling industry. The full effects of this seizure have not been felt yet but there’s now even less online us casino sites available. Will the industry survive? It remains to be seen but it’s been hit hard.
Information from Lifeline Of The USA Internet Gambling Law
