With more than a trillion dollars changing hands around the

world on online casinos alone, sooner rather than later

legislation will step in to exercise some form of control in

the casino industry. Those measures to control casinos and

gambling during the early years worked as the casino had a

physical location. Today however casinos have moved online with

no real physical location. The question arises how legal are

these online casinos?

Gambling legislation has not changed much since Congress passed

the Wire Act in 1961. The Wire Act states that "Whoever being

engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a

wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate

or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting

in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or

contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which

entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result

of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing

of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or

imprisoned not more than two years, or both." This however only

covered sports betting and not casinos. There was also no

Internet or Internet casinos during that time.

During 1998 both MasterCard and Visa sued Cynthia Haines for

money she lost while gambling on an online casino. She had lost

more than US$70,000 to an online casino and could not settle her

account with the plaintiffs. She filed a counterclaim well

within the state laws of California which prohibited credit

card loans for gambling be it online casinos or bricks and

mortar casinos. That case was settled out of court. Many states

have now enacted their own legislation however casinos have

moved their gambling operations off shore to casino friendly

countries.

Gambling has increased drastically with the advent of the

Internet and online casinos. With huge profits and vested

interest in casinos there are also very strong lobbyists in

government to keep gambling unimpeded. The Internet Gambling

Prohibition Act which was defeated in 2000 shows how much

vested interest there is in the casino and gaming industry.

Cyberspace is the last frontier when it comes to laws governing

casinos. Only time will tell how legislation will catch-up with

online casinos and gambling websites.