A lot of people are starting to get excited about news that might effect online gambling in the United States. The Department of Justice has recently stated that the Wire Act only pertains to the betting on sports and not anything else.

The Wire Act is the only Federal Law that was used in reference to illegal gambling online. It was assumed that this law prohibited all online gambling including poker, casino games, bingo and so forth. It appears that this is no longer the case.

It is currently unclear how this will effect the global markets for these legitamte games. Many of the online casinos and poker rooms do not accept players from the United States because they believe that they would be breaking a U.S. federal law. It appears that this is no longer the case.

However, even if there is no longer a federal law stating that online casinos and online poker rooms are illegal, there still may exist state and local laws against online gambling. For instance, the state of Washington has made playing online poker a felony.

What about UIGEA?

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was created to crack down on online casino and poker sites back in 2006. However, it does not specifically ban gambling activities by name. It only states that the internet gambling be unlawful. Currently, that only applies to Sports Betting.

They did have examples of legal internet gambling in the UIGEA. Specifically, they made Horse Racing and NFL Fantasy Football completely legal. This is why you can bet on the Kentucky Derby from your local track and why you can play Yahoo! Fantasy Football for money.

Some companies left the US market willingly because of UIGEA and some companies like PartyPoker had to pay fines up to $300 million for accepting American Players. What happens to them now? They didn’t break a law, did they?

Other companies stayed in the American market. Originally, nothing was done for a couple of years. This was because the government left it to the banks to police the transactions that were going through. Finally, they started to crack down on these transactions and companies had to commit fraud in order to get the transactions through.

This decision isn’t going to have any effect on the charges against Full Tilt and PokerStars for this reason. The charges that are going to stick are the fraudulent services and products that were used in order to get the American player’s money.

Where do we go from here?

This is going to depend on what happens next. The legitimate online casinos in Europe aren’t going to come back unless there is a law that specifically makes online gambling legal. Therefore, you aren’t likely going to see the big players come back until then.

However, you will probably see more of the smaller companies try to get into the US market. As long as they don’t commit the same fraud that the poker sites did and they don’t offer sports betting, they will have an argument that they aren’t committing any crime.

Of course, everyone hopes that this will lead to the legitimacy of most online gambling games. If that happens, not only will you see Party Poker and the UK online casino giants come back, but you will also see a whole lot of competition from Las Vegas. Up til now, the Las Vegas casinos could never have an online casino, unless they wanted to market to non-US players.

Recently five accused individual found out the hard way in South Carolina that the gambling laws are outdated. The accused were found guilty of gambling as they were playing a home poker game. It is noted that the state is out to ensure that no one else is convicted for playing poker at home. According to the 1802 law, not only poker that is outlawed, but also any other game with cards or dice is considered illegal. Actually, the law brings into play games for example Monopoly and Yahtzee, tradition family oriented various board games. But now time is changing. People demand to get right to play those games at home.

Considering the people demand the administration is going to legalized those. Senator Glenn McConnell is leading the way towards fixing the law by proposing a Bill.  The Bill would legalize house poker games and “casino nights”, too that are used for fundraisers. However, there are several stipulations in the proposing Bill for the home poker games. Important stipulations are:

1. No income from the games can be made by the house.
2. Cannot be any betting odds that would be in the house favor.
3. The game must consist of every person playing equally against each other, not the house.

The state’s gambling law has been attacked by numerous people since the poker house ruling came down from Judge Larry Duffy. He acknowledged poker as a game one of skill, not chance but he was forced to rule that the accused broke the law. Latest news is that the case is being appealed, and regardless of the ending it has played a vital role in the decision to revisit the obsolete gambling laws. It seems like McConnell’s Bill has a lot of support from fellow lawmakers. As a result, it has a strong possibility to be approved. So, who want to play poker at home, just wait few days till the bill approved.

It is true that when a government or administration makes any change to a gambling law, there are generally waves of change that occur as a result of the decision. That was the case 14, January, 2009 when the Taiwan government approved a special Bill that repeals a law against casino gambling in the country.

AMZ, a UK-listed property development company, is anticipating bringing a casino resort to Penghu and with recent announcement their stock skyrocketed on the London Alternative Investment Market. Their stock price rose by 46%, to 91% pence. AMZ plans on being involved seriously in the bid to get a gaming license from Taiwan.

It has been a long time coming for the country to repeal the gambling law. Taiwan government legalized casino gambling, last week after 10 years of debate, has set aside two other state-owned plots for potential development. In a telephone interview Justin Chou, one of the members of the ruling Kuomintang, said “The first draft of this Bill was made in 1994, and it took so long because there’s so much debate and so many competing voices. Because Taiwan’s economy is now falling, the belief is that probably these resort projects can help spur the economy.” Taiwan authority has indicated that two or three gaming licenses will be issued once additional legislation is passed.

Taiwan’s recent economy is the main reason that the gambling laws have been changed. The tourism cash that used to flow freely has decreased in recent several years and the administration is hopeful that casinos will bring many of that tourism back. On the other hand, experts say that action was typically damaging to Macau. As already the casinos in Macau (Macao) have begun to struggle financially, and in this circumstance, Taiwan joins Singapore to make much competition for casinos of Macau.

Recently, Norway’s parliament passed a new law that bans Norwegians from transaction money to online casinos and poker rooms. The enacted law amends three preexisting laws and particularly defines online-based transactions as subject to earlier defined “mediating service” clause. The Ministry of Church and Cultural affairs proposed the law in September 2008 as anti-gambling sentiment grew over spiraling slot-machine addiction. The opinion of Rolf Sims, legal advisor of the ministry, the bill was “on the drawing board” as early as Oct. 5. Sims said to the press at the time “The anti-gambling lobby has got the wind in its sails.” He added “It would be political suicide for any government minister to suggest legalizing gambling.”

However, the bill has got little purchase in several circles such as the European Union and the Norwegian Financial Services Association (FNH). Despite the fact that, Norway is not an EU member state but as a part of the European Economic Area, the Scandinavian nation has drawn fire from Brussels for encouraging Germany, France, and the Netherlands to keep their lusty gambling markets closed. In the meantime, The FNH has pointed out some difficulties American legislators have faced in implementing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Earlier The UIGEA bans web-based transfers to Internet gambling sites as well but had got experience a myriad of enforcement setbacks since first having law in 2006.

FHN spokesperson Tonje Westby said, “Although the law amendments have been adopted in the Norwegian Parliament… regulatory guidance might need to be revised.” he added “If politicians choose to introduce revised regulations, it will take some months before the law amendments come into force.”  He went on to say, “This (prohibition) will be very difficult to enforce, and those who really want to gamble on the Internet will find other ways to do so. Norwegians susceptible to problem-gambling behavior will most likely be persuaded to set up foreign bank accounts and use foreign payment systems outside Norwegian regulatory control.” Norwegian MPs do not announce a definitive enforcement timeline till now; some legal commentators said, “Delays could mean the ban will not take effect before mid-2009.” So, it is time to see when the new will be exercised.

There are tough decisions about the online gambling being legal or illegal. However it doesn’t stop the online casino companies from their business and the popularity of online gambling. The peoples playing casino online are increasing day by day. Recently there are three rules that will look after the online gamblers, gambling software developers and those who run online casinos.

The first rule is “The Skill Game Protection Act (HR 2610)” which discriminates the games like poker, bridge, mahjong, chess and backgammon to be determined by the skill of the player instead of chance. And any one under 18 is not allowed to play any kind of online gambling.

Second rule is “Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007 (HR 2046)” which says the gamblers should be accepted by the federal licensed online companies and online gambling is not allowed to be taken as professional sport.

The final bill is “Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2007 (HR 2607)” which compensations the Internal Review Code of 1986 to control online gambling.

Although there are specific rules for online casino or online gamblers but there is not any detailed law against the online casino advertising. These casinos advertise are attracting more people to online casinos and converting them into online gamblers. These advertise companies are very desperate and mainly lot companies that have been suffering from serious financial crisis are now coming forward.

However the laws may be made but the government should take some proper and serious step against the online gamblers, online casino authority and gambling software developers.