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U.S. House Clears Anti-Internet Gambling Bill

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the thousands-of-hopeful-moneymakers-shut-down dept.

matr0x_x writes "The U.S. has just moved one step closer to banning all Internet gambling sites when the US House of Representatives cleared an anti-Internet gambling bill yesterday. The bill is against a World Trade Organization ruling last August that stated the US must not block online gambling sites based overseas." From the article: " The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law."

3 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. Let me get this straight by hackstraw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law.

    So, today, its legal to do money transfers for illegal gambling?

    So, today, in my state, the government is the only legal gambling outfit? (lottery)

    So, its illegal for me to do business in another country according to their laws?

    I don't gamble beyond retirement funds, insurance, and whatnot.

    Here is interesting, and typical situations from those that "win" the lottery: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt/ Savemoney/P99649.asp

    In the end, nothing will change. Offshore gambling will be no different.

  2. Re:How it's written is what matters by Gorm+the+DBA · · Score: 5, Interesting
    For someone with more accounting/legal background...would anything keep me from opening, say a Bank of England account, funding that account via legal methods, using said account for various normal activities (ie debiting my groceries, etc) then when I want to fund a poker account using the funds from that account to do so?

    I wouldn't be using the US financial system to fund the account, it would be my British (where this is legal, regulated, and presumably taxed) account, transferring money to a British online casino (pokerstars, for example). I would be using US wires to notify them to do this, but I'm not notifying them to do anything illegal (under their laws), so not running afoul of wire statutes...

    Would this work? If so, I can see a huge business opportunity for overseas banking for the little guy, as opposed to the big corporation which uses a similar dodge to avoid taxes.

  3. Encouraging money laundering... by tansey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All this is going to do is encourage people to forgo using the direct deposit features most sites offer, opting for indirect funds deposits.

    Right now, most sites offer the ability to write an e-check directly from a player's bank account to the poker site. However, virtually all sites also offer deposit via Neteller or Firepay. Since the latter method is not traceable since the 2 companies are not based in the US, players will just opt to use that method now.

    So what this bill is effectively doing is encouraging people to launder how they cash in and out of poker sites. It will do nothing to stop people from actually playing.