Road to legal gaming runs through Nevada
January 8, 2012
In 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act placed a slow choke hold on the ability for US gamblers to play poker for real money online. Many online gaming companies such as 888, Party Gaming, and 32Red left the rich USA customers with little in the lines of viable options out of fear that those in charge would either be prosecuted or prevented from returning to a regulated online gambling environment should UIGEA be overturned and gambling online specifically legalized.
Since the 2006 enactment of UIGEA, we have seen several high profile collapses in addition to these voluntary exits. Sites like PokerStars were forced from providing gaming to their large base of US players and other companies like Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, and Absolute Poker were forced into virtual ghost towns due to seizure of funding targeting payment processors and seemingly illegal transactions between online poker rooms and US players. One could easily say that the once paved road running between legalized online gambling and an in-demand US market full of players was left in rubble.
Whilst this sounds like a lot of doom and gloom, it appears as if the sun has begun to shine or at least is peaking through the clouds as the Department of Justice recently uttered their first musically sounding words since UIGEA went into effect. The DOJ went on the record to lay claims that the Federal Wire Act applied only to sports betting and did not apply to online games unrelated to betting on sports across state borders. This came as great news to online gambling companies as this clearly suggested that those companies not engaging in sports betting were not accountable for crimes under the wire act.
Such an announcement could well have inspired lawmakers in Nevada to begin laying the foundation for legalized online gambling licenced by their state. The Nevada Gambling Commission has begun the process of accepting applications for licencing the rights to offer online poker games. Such movement on these laws deems it only a matter of time before similar laws will be enacted to allow online casino games and online poker games to be offered legally in Nevada and the rest of the USA.
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