American Internet Gambling Laws Do Not Protect the Public
Posted: February 21, 2012
Updated: October 4, 2017
Washington legislators keep on fighting over nothing while billions in casino revenues leave American soil.
Unclear and often confusing American gambling laws prevent US-based firms from offering gambling to American players. This, from puritan point of view, is good. However, this logic doesn’t account for two things.
The first thing is that these gamblers will go and play anyway. This, indeed, may expose them to unchecked sites that scam players. The second thing is that the tax revenues don’t end up in the United States.
There are as many as 1700 offshore online casino sites that attract American gamblers as estimated by American gambling news, while as much as $6 billion in revenues comes from the Land of the Free.
What, then, is the sense of preventing online casinos in United States? Quite to the contrary, allowing legitimate and regulated online gambling businesses will only protect players and create jobs, while adding to federal and state coffers. There seems to be a casino lobby looking to protect land-based casino businesses from additional competition. They want to prevent online enterprises from growing roots on US soil.
In addition to legalizing operations, it is also important for consumers to check the sites and learn more about multiple opportunities in light of emerging technologies such as mobile casino gambling and other ways to pursue the games of skill and the games of luck.
After all, Washington bureaucrats can’t continue to fight and do nothing. They need to resolve the gambling law issues. Those who bend to lobbying efforts, need to be punished by the voters. The nearest chance: November elections. Money continues to leak out of the country, while it could stay there and create legitimate gambling-related jobs.