Is It Legal to Gamble Online in the USA?

Introduction: Is it Legal to Gamble Online in the USA?

No, you can’t drink until you’re 21 years of age. Yes, you can get married at 14 and own a gun. So when it comes to gambling, one of the oldest past times in history, no, you can’t gamble in a casino, let alone online in many US states. Then there are the different casino games such as roulette, which is legal in some states, has legislation going through in others, and is totally illegal in some more. It’s all very confusing for those of us who used to have a single law for the whole of a country. In some states, just to add more color to the mix, some games are legal and others are not, and those particular games can vary in legality, state to state. To learn more about the current regulations follow the latest lottery news.

Not By Federal Law

OK, now we’re all thoroughly confused, let’s get a persistent myth out of the way. Namely, that to gamble online is prohibited by Federal law. No, it’s not. This myth comes from a simple misunderstanding of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Now one of the provisions within the act states has to do with Wire Transfers. It essentially states that” that no person or entity may knowingly accept any funds associated with a person participating in illegal online gambling”. The constantly misquoted word is “accept”. This has absolutely no bearing on your rights or abilities to send money.

The SAFE Ports Act

In 2006, the US Senate passed the “SAFE Port Act” which is designed to safeguard against maritime terrorism. So far so good. The act passed easily. But at the very last minute, those stupid and retrograde Republicans added the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act to this law. So while the SAFE Port Act was a necessary piece of legislature, the UIGEA was certainly not. But there you are, the main Act needed to pass, so this minor piece of rubbish passed as well. Later many members of the Senate claimed that they had no time to even read this added Act. Real democracy at work.

Gamble Online: Payment Processors

It’s due to this law that virtually all the major players and payment processors are operating from outside the US. In fact, it’s these very same payment processors are necessary otherwise there would be no online gambling in the US at all. Unfortunately, a player can’t simply supply the gaming company with his credit card details and transfer the funds. An offshore payment processor now does that for you.

Let’s Just Make It All Up

Unfortunately, there are those that deliberately misinterpret the language of the law. They insist that it’s illegal to knowingly transfer funds to online casinos situated abroad. If you use your own credit card or otherwise send money through a payment processor for the purposes of gambling online. The thing is that at the Federal level, this is all bullshit. The UIGEA has no remit to penalize players who want to gamble online or transfer funds to do so.

Gamble Online: Player Beware

At the end of the day, it’s down t the individual player to research and sees where he can gamble online. Go look online at the municipal or county rules and see if online gambling is prohibited. Do a back search to see if anyone has ever been prosecuted in your state (bro tip: no one has ever been prosecuted across the whole US). Of course, there’s a good chance that it is technically illegal, but the law has never been enforced. There’s also the added problem that many local-level laws were written before the internet even existed, and have never been updated to take into account this new means of communication. But there still are many states that have laws that either allow for or don’t allow online gambling. So you need to still be careful.

Libertarians, One And All

Now whether you want to gamble online or not, is down to you. As far as they go as players, we would certainly avoid states in which online gambling (or to use their catch-all term “illegal gambling) is a crime. looking back through records from the time of internet gambling, we’ve yet to find a single prosecution. But we don’t recommend that you be the first one to try the system.

If a Law is Unenforced, Is It Still a Law?

Or Schrödinger’s law. The states that are enforcing these gamble online laws (at least on their books but not in practice) have the offenses marked down as “misdemeanors”, meaning that they’re not really serious in nature. The problem is, that these small things can escalate and before you know it the IRS are involved. And no one wants to go there. We wouldn’t be bothered in States where the likelihood of getting caught is low, more especially if you’re doing it from your own home (as opposed to the local internet cafe!). Unless someone turns you in, then there’s the added possibility that law enforcement just doesn’t care enough to bother with it. But you’re still taking a chance on not meeting some self-righteous prick.

Gamble Online: Blame The Plymouth Pilgrims

You’ll still find states that have laws that prohibit you from playing gambling games at home. Yeah, you read that right, “in your own home!”. That’s correct, you can’t bet a few $’s on the outcome of that game of Monopoly. It’s crazy stupid, but then again so are all these morality laws. Do adults still need someone to tell them how to behave in the 21st century? Apparently the answer is a resounding “yes”. Blame those founding fathers. And remember that back in the 1600s, they were not against gambling because it was in itself immoral. Oh no. They were against it because people actually enjoyed playing. Now you can see more clearly why the UK kicked them out! Anyhow, you can play anytime at the online jackpot sites.

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