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Wire Act Effectiveness Against Online Gambling

The current outbursts of online gambling fever are highly contagious and thousands of gambling activities are widely advocated throughout the world. There is a growing popularity of games played in gambling such as poker games where poker tournaments are now being televised for public viewing.

Online gambling becomes more popular and globally advocated due to the fact that it can provide entertainment at the convenience of not necessarily leaving the home. Casino games are also offered online with real players competing against each other for their wager. The virtual features of online gambling provide an ambience of being in a real gambling vicinity or venue that is quite satisfying among gamblers.

Online gambling however is strongly restricted in the United States. To further stress the point of the US government, they implement the Wire Act of 1961 against online gambling. The provision stipulated in the statute is to prohibit gambling activities via the telephone or any electronic means. Online gambling is believed to be covered with the Wire Act in the United States.

There was an attempt of expanding the provision coverage on media trade inclusion that may be held responsible for illegal activity thorough aiding online gambling in any form. This includes the advertisement regarding promotion of online gambling. In response to this warning against harboring illegal activity such as online gambling, the two leading search engines, Yahoo and Google made an announcement that all online gambling advertisement will be removed from their site. From that time on, Yahoo and Google no longer accept any advertisements that involve online betting.

Many credit card issuers based in the U.S. no longer accept payments made with their cards involving payment with any gambling sites. Some of these identified U.S. based credit card issuers are Paypal, American Express, Western Union and many others. Even U.S banks, in response to the Wire Act law no longer allow any transactions made with their bank that involves payment related to gambling activities. Other fund transfer sites such as Neteller, Moneybooker and FirePay no longer offer gambling related services to US residents. To date, most American actually experience rejection of credit card payment related to payment for online casinos or online gambling in general.

But despite of the effort of the U.S. government to prevent the widespread online gambling with the main concern that criminals might be using it for money laundering, its effect is only felt locally within its States. The Wire Act does not include other countries from banning online gambling activities. Due to this coverage limitation, most online gambling corporation moved its operation to other countries. However, the Wire Act does not deter Americans from continuing their gambling online because of the many online gambling still flocking the Internet which are not U.S. based sites.

The only disadvantage to Americans participating to offshore activity is the increased risk of getting involved to an activity that lacks regulations. The American rights are not well protected against dishonest online gambling operators. Since these concerns are beyond the coverage of the Wire Act, American should take steps of safeguarding their finances when making transactions to offshore activities involving online gambling.

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