Lifeline Of The US Internet Gambling Law

In 1996 we were treated to a surge of internet casinosthat swept thru the whole world. The US saw a tremendous increase in both internet casinos and players. This surge of online players worried the land-based casino owners and they lobbied to have it stopped or at least slowed down. They realized if this pace continued they would see even 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 the banks and payment processors from processing any type of transactions associated with online gambling. This created a problem for players in depositing and withdrawing money from their online accounts. While the companies continued to operate they had to use payment processors that could get around such restrictions. Despite all of these laws related to online gambling, some online casinos continued to accept players in the United States.

In contrast, a lot of the bigger online brands left the United States market, the choices for players became really limited. Many said it was tough to find a good online casino. Alot of ratings sites began to appear that directed players to the sites they so desperately looked for. Some of these sites were better than others, nevertheless they served the need that was created. Soon after the market started to stabilize and players were playing online again, Black Friday hit the online gaming world.

Many casinos had found a way around the deposit and withdrawal problems and the online gambling world was growing once again. Many began to feel invincible to this new law. The government was not really enforcing it and it seemed like they had no intentions of doing so. This was certainly a false sense of security for both the players and internet 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 owners of the three largest poker rooms 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 addresses and their funds. Instantly many US players were not just left with nowhere to gamble and no way to recover their funds.

Black Friday forced even more gambling brands to leave the United States Market. Everybody was once more scrambling to find new places to gamble, worried when they would ever get their funds back, and wondering if anybody was going to stay in the United States market. A major blow was struck to online gaming and many people wondered if it would survive. Again the rating sites played a significant role in discovering 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.

The next major event was Gray Monday. Grey Monday saw more website names and gambling operations seized. There are two main disparities with these seizures. This time both big and small sites were seized. Several sectors in the industry were seized including online poker, casinos, sports books and also 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 experienced by everyone throughout the gambling industry. The full effects of this seizure have not been felt yet but there is 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 Life Line Of The USA Internet Gambling Law