With more than a trillion dollars changing hands around the world on online casinos alone, sooner rather than later legislation will step in
to exercise some form of control in the casino industry. Those measures
to control casinos and gambling during the early years worked as the
casino had a physical location. Today however casinos have moved online
with no real physical location. The question arises how legal are these
online casinos?
Gambling legislation has not changed much since Congress passed the Wire
Act in 1961. This however only covered sports betting and not casinos.
There was also no Internet or Internet casinos during that time. During
1998 both MasterCard and Visa sued Cynthia Haines for money she lost
while gambling on an online casino. She had lost more than US$70,000 to
an online casino and could not settle her account with the plaintiffs.
She filed a counterclaim well within the state laws of California which
prohibited credit card loans for gambling be it online casinos or bricks
and mortar casinos. That case was settled out of court. Many states
have now enacted their own legislation however casinos have moved their
gambling operations off shore to casino friendly countries.
Gambling has increased drastically with the advent of the Internet and
online casinos. With huge profits and vested interest in casinos there
are also very strong lobbyists in government to keep gambling unimpeded.
The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act which was defeated in 2000 shows
how much vested interest there is in the casino and gaming industry.
Cyberspace is the last frontier when it comes to laws governing casinos.
Only time will tell how legislation will catch-up with online casinos
and gambling websites.
