Official language: English
Population: 306,189,000
Currency: United States Dollar (USD)

Current Exchange Rate
1 EUR = USD
1 GBP = USD

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Gambling in United States
The United States of America is often portrayed as the gambling capital of the world, but this reputation is due to just a few gaming hotspots - mostly Las Vegas and Atlantic City. In fact, the country as a whole has some of the strictest gambling laws in the western world, although the federal government does not regulate the matter within each state’s boundaries. The states are free to either regulate or completely prohibit gambling on their territories.

A small number of states and sovereign tribal lands therefore permit casino style gambling in designated areas. As it stands now, a significant portion of the American populace must take extensive trips if they wish to play the slots or wager their money on table games

The most widely available game in the US is the lottery. There are only two states, Hawaii and Utah, which allow neither casino gambling nor a lottery.

Online Gambling in United States
Many online casinos and poker rooms offered their services to Americans in the early days of the industry, but their activities have since been shut down. While there are no specific laws banning online gambling, The Federal Wire Act of 1961 has been systematically interpreted and used in courts to disallow internet wagers. At the end of 2011 the Department of Justice finally issued a clarification confirming that the Act in question applied only to sports betting. This led to a surge in state-level legalization efforts.

US federal lawmakers have since tried to pass federal gambling laws to regulate the matter, but their attempts have all failed. As a result, several states have passed laws authorizing online gambling within their territories. Furthermore, special contracts (so-called compacts) among such states may soon lead to de facto interstate gambling, without the need for additional federal legislation.

While the US government doesn’t want to encourage people to gamble online, technically they can’t stop US residents from playing at offshore internet casinos. Instead, the government has made it illegal for banks to process payments to online casinos. As usual, players find ways around this obstacle. Lots of online payment methods have found loopholes in the system, and let US players fund their internet casino accounts with no problems. Not all online casinos and other gambling sites accept US players, but many do, and since it is technically not illegal to gamble on the internet in the US, players are safe.