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Casinos Risk Everything Advertising to Americans

Up until recently, the widespread attitude towards the UIGEA was one of cheerful defiance. The legislation barring gambling sites from entering into financial transactions with Americans was controversial from the first date of its signing, but, for the first year and a half of its existence, the law’s specifics were largely undefined. The largest online slots and casino gambling hubs on the World Wide Web flouted the Act shamelessly, or undertook only the most shallow and transparent “safeguards” against unauthorized players signing up. All this has changed in recent months. The Justice Department is seriously stepping up its enforcement of the UIGEA, and, suddenly, the brashest online casinos are now a lot more hesitant to welcome American players.
Many player-run sites have built lists of those sites where U.S. citizens may still play their favorite online slots and other forms of casino gambling, but these rosters are becoming outdated on a daily basis. With Microgaming (one of the largest and most significant gambling technology providers in the world) officially barring American players from signing up on the casino sites run on its software, a major event in the epoch of American gambling took place.
Those casino sites still welcoming Yanks are risking it all by continuing to court U.S. players and their money. Presumably, these stubborn holdouts are praying that the Obama administration will be more friendly towards the industry than the Bush administration. The gambling industry favored Obama for president, because all signs pointed to him having a more lenient view on online gambling than his predecessor. Only time will tell how these predictions pan out, and what consequences could be in store for the defiant gambling sites.

Back to November 2008 Archive.