>>Subscribe via Email<<

Neteller, MoneyBookers and US Gambling Laws

Posted by Aegist on October 27th, 2006

There has been a lot of discussion online amongst arbers, gamblers and everyone related to the online gambling world lately about the affects of the recent Bill in the USA which will attempt to stop all fincancial systems from depositing money from US citizens into gambling related websites.

My initial thought (and I was not alone) was that US citizens will simply use financial systems (banks, E-wallets etc) that are outside of the US, and hence not subject to US laws. Interestingly enough though, the two biggest e-wallets in the online gambling industry (Moneybookers and Neteller) have both accepted this new law readily.

Neteller, based in the Isle of Man, published a press release to its investors saying:

“NETELLER, a company registered outside the US, will comply with the Act and its related regulations as if it were subject to the Act’s jurisdiction. This action is intended to ensure that the Company is able to continue to operate with the support of its principal commercial partners and to protect its shareholders, business partners, employees and reputation.”

Meanwhile Moneybookers, mailing address in London, advises all new US members that:

“It is Moneybookers’ policy NOT to allow residents of the United States of America to transact to and from gambling/casino/poker merchants.”

So already this new legislature, which has indeed not even been finalised yet, has started to impact online gambling for US citizens quite strongly. Many sportsbooks are still calling to US citizens to come and join and gamble with them. They assert that they are not “illegal internet gambling” sites, and thus may still be used. However I guess the problem is that legality in the States varies from state to state.

Anyway…that’s the problem. Is there a solution, or is the Bush Administration going to win? I’m not going to advocate illegal gambling here, but I am curious how those sportsbooks which are calling for more US players to join them plan on taking money from those players. I plan to look into it a bit more, but I know already that they can’t use credit cards, US bank accounts, Neteller, or MoneyBookers…. There aren’t many options left.

But I am sure that where there is a will, there is a way. And where there is a multi-billion dollar industry involved, there is one powerful will involved. I’m imagining bookmakers will start offering “gift cerificates” for…some non-descript service shortly which will allow members to freely by these certificates online and redeem them at anyone of there websites…some (or all) of which may be gambling based websites. Who knows how they will control that?

Shane

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.