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Should Your Right to Gamble be Taken Away by the Banks?
By Igor Ivanov | November 29, 2007
The United States government’s most effective response against online gaming thus far has been to force banks and credit-card companies to stop processing payments made to offshore sportsbooks. The laws could eventually become even stricter: HR 4777 (the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act) may have died on the floor, but other attempts to revise the Wire Act to support the Department of Justice’s interpretation are ongoing – some more friendly to gambling than others.
The major banks haven’t waited for the Wire Act to be clarified. They were restricting credit card transactions to offshore books years ago when these anti-gambling regulations were first proposed. Smaller banks balked at the loss of cash flow, not to mention the sheer amount of red tape involved in monitoring these transactions.
Last month, the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative published an advisory report that said banks are being unfairly burdened. The group’s bias is obvious, but the WTO certainly agrees.
Topics: Gambling |
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