Playing poker online and depositing your hard earned money via a credit card into a poker account should come with a little bit of scrutiny from you the poker player. The online gambling laws are very unclear at this time. Most law enforcement actions concerning online gambling have been dealt with under the guise of the 1961 Federal Interstate Wireline Act. The law states “any bookie who uses wire communication between states or between a state and a foreign country to take bets on any sporting event or contest is guilty of a felony.” “Sporting event” or “contest” leaves a lot to interpretation.
I am definitely not an attorney or an expert on this topic. What I do know about online gambling laws, by doing research, is that the online gambling laws are very difficult to enforce for the law enforcement agencies; and many people question the viability of using the Interstate Wireline Act as a tool in the law enforcement arsenal, because the law referred to phone wires when it was written.
Catching a person sitting at home making an illegal bet is next to impossible. It is more likely the law enforcement agencies will spend their time and energy looking for the people who operate illegal online gambling sites and break any existing poker room laws.
Laws for poker rooms online are hard to locate and the individual states in the USA are just now trying to develop their own laws for poker rooms online and other online gambling activities. The laws for poker rooms online are extremely hard to enforce. Basically, laws for poker rooms online only mean that USA based online poker websites are regulated in some sort of way by either the federal or state government.
The greatest difficulty with catching people who run illegal websites that do not adhere to online gambling laws is that the webmaster can simply close one site and then start a new one. Additionally, most web servers that deliver gambling services are actually stored outside of the United States, so as to not fall under the reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agents simply cannot chase every Webmaster, who breaks online gambling laws, across the world and prosecute him or her.
Online gambling laws are intended to be in place to try and protect the consumer who plays the poker room games. And, online gamblers often assume incorrectly that poker room laws can and will protect them.
Poker room laws and online gambling laws are tending to focus more on the money transfer organizations such as banks and other financial institutions in their fight against those breaking current poker room laws. The theory is that if you stop the flow of money to those breaking poker room laws, then the criminals will have no financial motivation to keep breaking existing poker room laws. If your only method of payment is MasterCard, then you might find yourself completely unable to post a bet online since MasterCard is proactively working to prevent you from using online gambling websites. It only took one multi-million dollar lawsuit to end MasterCard’s participation in the online gambling trade.
Many special interest groups have fought against the state urges to create online gambling laws, because they did not want the online gambling laws to interfere with their own gambling systems and enterprises. The physical casinos, states that run lotteries, and other special interest groups have always worried about what impact online gambling laws might have on them. These special interest groups carry a lot of weight with lawmakers and have made some lawmakers hesitant to push for legislation that imposes new online gambling laws.
Because of the difficulty of enforcing current online gambling laws, legislators have avoided the topic for the most part. It has been politically advantageous for lawmakers not to take on the gaming industry that can contribute handsomely to their campaigns. However, with the continuing growth of Internet gambling, lawmakers will have no choice but to face online gambling laws head on and make some very difficult decisions about what laws to create and how to enforce those laws.
If you are worried about being ripped off when playing poker room games or any other online casino games you are not alone. The best thing you can do to protect yourself against breaking any laws or being the victim of fraud is to do your research. Learn about the company operating the poker games. Find the human being behind the website. Read poker forum reviews in a poker directory to see if there have been any complaints made. Finally, if you are unsure as to whether or not your own online gambling activities are legal, consult your attorney to find out for sure.