Countless of traditional gambling companies sat on the sidelines as the Internet grew, and uncertain to take advantage of the new technology for their businesses. It wasn’t until 1996 that the first online casino was opened. Once the first online casino site had opened, other companies started rushing to join in on the action. Online casino continued to grow at a tremendous rate until the October 2006. At that time, a law was passed in the United States that made it difficult for Americans to access the money they had in the online casino accounts. This law caused many online casinos to go out of business, and the gaming companies affected by the law saw their shares drop drastically in price. Most of the online casino companies affected by the new law were located in the UK.

The October 2006 law was pushed through by a congressman named Bob Goodlatte, who is from Virginia. He claimed that online gambling would corrupt young people in America. However, it is now known that this man accepted $60,000 from the horse racing industry for his campaign. The 2006 law was pushed through in order to protect US-based gambling organizations, not to protect young people from online casino. There are efforts being made to reverse this law in 2008.

Inability To Monitor Control and Collect Taxation – these are by far the major reason for all the anti online gambling bills against online casino. You see over 95% of the online casinos are licensed and operated in places outside of the jurisdiction of the USA, like Antigua, Costa Rica, Curacao, Kahnawake, Malta and Cyprus. This is where the servers are  located and hence where the bets originate.

Unlike land based casinos in the USA which are licensed by its state and where the books can be audited the online casino are not so easy to regulate and the majority of them are privately run and not traded on any of the worlds stock exchanges. This makes them easy to be manipulated to scam an unsuspecting public. With over 2500 online casino currently in operation probably less than 50 are truly above board and can be classified as reputable, honest business institutions. It is for this reason one has to be truly selective and very discerning when choosing an online casino to play in.

If only the US Government would take some time to research and update their gambling laws they could easily issue their own licenses and so allow the gaming servers to be on US soil. This would result in a legitimizing of the industry and the rise of honest and reputable publicly traded companies promoting online casino as safe havens for your entertainment. These companies would pass the stringent tests necessary to be listed on the exchanges, to raise capital for expansion etc.

It certainly seems like a no brainier and why it is not being done is anybody’s guess. As expected the Europeans are way ahead of the Americans as far as legalizing the industry is concerned. Even the Canadians are pulling ahead. The solution is simple, pass new laws for online casino, legalize the industry, establish code of ethics and best practices, enforce stringent audit procedures, collect the taxes and it’s a win win situation of all concerned.