Gambling Online

Online casinos have been around almost since the net as we know it today began. In Fact, Microgaming was founded in 1994 and by 1996 had sold of all of its casino interests in order to concentrate solely on the internet product.

Cryptologic was formed in 1995 with Boss Media following suit in 1996.

By 1998 online casinos had attracted the attention of the US government, with various officials introducing bills to prohibit online gambling at various times, all of which had failed. This coincided with Microgaming’s launch of the first online casino progressive jackpot: Cash Splash.

The anti internet gambling law was again introduced in 1999 and was once again shot down as it failed to generate two-thirds of the house interest. Australia made internet gambling illegal for any online casino in its jurisdiction except for those already licensed, of which Lassetters is the only one operating at present from the country. This event occurred in 2000 and coincided with yet another attempt by the US to introduce a bill prohibiting the gambling at any online casino.

All in all, the US ultimately passed several related bills in efforts to thwart playing at any online casino. One measure was to update an old law from the 1960’s which prohibited sports betting over the telephone and was called the “wire act”. These new bills did not directly prohibit gambling at any online casino, but instead made it illegal for a bank to transfer money for the purpose of online gambling.

Still, there were many banks who did not necessarily comply with the law as it was written because it was still too gray of an area to determine which gambling transactions were legal and those which weren’t.

All in all, these governments have accomplished what they set out to do, and the end result was that they have unilaterally chosen FOR US, what we should and should not do for entertainment. Their claims that internet gambling is simply for laundering money have been completely unproven, just like George W Bush’s lies took us to war against Iraq. There is little doubt in my mind that Iraq likely needed to be liberated, but to do so based on lies tells you in a nutshell, all about ole dubya’s tenure in Washington.

At any rate, check specific local laws before you choose to play at any online casino, if you can even find one that accepts US players these days. Our next article will be exactly that. A list of online casinos that still accept US players.