How US Government Shutdown Affects Gambling Industry

So in a move so ridiculous that many other countries stand mouth agape, the US federal government has ground to a halt as the Senate and House of Representatives failed to agree on the budget. No matter what anyone thinks about the fact that the world’s largest economy can just shut down like that, many people will be affected by this move. How will it affect land based, online, and mobile casinos, though?

Luckily for gamblers in America, US gambling laws cede control of the legislation to the individual states. So instead of a country wide regulator – who would inevitably have been shut down – there are 50 separate ones for each state. So, in Nevada, companies who had applied for one of the new online poker licenses won’t find their application mothballed by lack of government funding.

Unlike NASA, that is, as the space program’s website simply states they are not available, please go bother the federal government. Who you cannot contact, as no-one has access to their emails. With many other services offline, it’s a bit of a surprise that the gambling world hasn’t been affected too much by this, but should the impasse continue for a longer time, who knows.

Earlier today, 30 year old sportsbook Intertops was offline, but they quickly bought the site back up. Other than that, it’s business as usual. Which means that gamblers in America have very little choice. With the first real money online casinos in the US not due to go live until November time, and then only within the borders of New Jersey, fans of online gambling have been turning to potentially illegal online casinos.

With the NSA – guess what: they seem immune to the government shutdown, although the site isn’t being updated – able to tap into a record number of records, some 20 billion a day covering US citizens alone, it’s probably a good idea to be extra careful.