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Online Gambling Laws in USA

Gambling itself is a temptation to win a lot of money easily. Online gambling is even more seductive offering the same possibilities without leaving home. But before starting online gambling you should make sure that it is legal in your country or state. It should be made to prevent you from possible problems with law.

In should be mentioned, that attitude towards online gambling differs from countries to states. As a result of such differences in authorities' opinions, the issue of online gambling legality can possibly not be resolved. Another reason is that most laws, concerning gambling itself, do not cover the problem of online gambling.

Nevertheless, online gambling is completely legal in many countries, such as Australia, the Dominion Republic, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden.

What prohibit US citizens from gambling?

USA State Gaming Laws

Nowadays, all gambling activities are subjects to the State laws in the USA. As it was mentioned above, different states have different laws considering gambling. Some of them allow gambling (e.g. State of Nevada) and some of them prohibit any kinds of gambling (e.g. Utah and Hawaii). There are also states that took some middle position, and have legalized most of the gambling facilities, however, in some of them players are forbidden to play roulette (RouletteDoc.com), take part in any kind of lotteries and play live casinos (e.g. blackjack, baccarat, etc.).

Considering online gambling, it should be mentioned, that in most states of the USA it is illegal to transfer money to online casinos or receive it for online gambling. However, laws in the most states do not even cover the issue of online gambling.

USA Federal Gaming Laws

In is worth mentioning, that the US legislation about online gambling is very shaky. It has always been like that. There were some efforts to prohibit the online gambling in the USA, but they failed due to the fact that any of the laws banning Internet gambling activities did not receive the necessary number of votes in the Senate.

However, there is one important and quite influential federal law, called Wire Wager Act, covering online gambling. It puts bans on wire connections for taking part in betting (mainly sport betting) and even looking the information about betting! Anyone doing that is breaking the US law and can be fined or even taken into prison.

Wire Wager Act is not accepted by everyone and many gambling experts says, that it covers only sport betting, not taken any casinos in its jurisdiction. Other experts state, that in their opinion, online gambling can be considered as legal activity as no US regulation prohibits online gambling domestically or abroad in explicit way.

All in all, because of the unclear legal, US gamblers are not accepted to many reputable no deposit online casinos.

The best advice for all online gamblers is to carefully check their countries and states laws relating online gaming to prevent problems in future.