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Gambling Laws and restricted countries |
Gambling with the Law
Placing your bets has always been a legal question mark. Countries vary on their stances on the issue of gambling, many banning it outright and some enjoying the (considerable) revenue it brings. The laws themselves are often complicated and unclear, and as difficult as they are to understand, they appear to be even more difficult to implement. Today, the online gaming market has further challenged the authorities. Whether to legalize, prohibit or restrict this activity, is the main question being asked by national and state governments all over the world.
Gambling laws therefore depend mostly on where you live and where you want to play – whether its on or offline – and of course, on somebody to enforce them…
The USA Way
Almost half of the estimated 12 million online gamblers worldwide are Americans – which is a massive number considering that officially, it is an illegal activity under United States Federal Law; but the issue has never been very clear. Firstly, each state has its own set of regulations on the matter. What this means, is that some types of online gambling maybe completely acceptable in some states, but totally illegal and even criminalized in others.
Last year, the American government passed a new (very controversial) law making it illegal for gambling sites to accept bets from players within the USA. The "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" (UIGEA) had an enormous effect on the industry in general, and especially the US market. However, realistically enforcing the ban is tricky to say the least, because many key, well-established gambling sites are not actually based in the USA, but in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal – too far away for the long arm of American law to reach them!
The EU View
The EU agreement is based on a free market system for goods and services; and as gambling is considered a service, this means that officially at least, players in EU countries should be able to freely try their luck. The actual situation on the ground -and in cyberspace - is that quite a number of EU countires have passed their own laws; varying from blocking players from accessing online gambling sites, to preventing them from playing on sites operating from other jurisdictions - which is causing them some serious trouble with the European Commission. These countires include Italy, France, Austria, Poland, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
Turkey had the idea of trying to go around the law by forcing its players to buy a rather costly authorization card in order to play, hoping to discourage many potential gamblers.
Suprisingly, Great Britain proved itself as a safe bet, opting for legalization of online gambling with certain restrictions. This gives them the benenfit of substantial tax revenues and allows some form of control over the industry.
Eastern philosophy
Hong Kong, China and Japan all currently have regulations declaring gambling illegal; but this has not stopped a few million Chinese players from logging onto online gaming sites, daily…
The Japanese government, realizing that this market is easier controlled when legalized, is proposing to permit specific gambling activities and changes to the law may be made soon.
Betting in the future
Some say that banning online (or onland) gambling is an infringement of our basic human rights; others claim that the only ones to really benefit from legalizing gambling are the gaming industry itself and the world’s governments (increased revenues and taxation). The main group needing protection by the law are the players themselves; and of course, prohibiting underage players should be the top priority. Already a $12 billion global business, it seems controlled legalization of online gambing is inevitable. The question is how long will it take?
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