In 1996 we were treated to a surge of online casinosthat swept thru the world. The US saw a huge increase in both online casinos and players. This surge of internet players worried the land-based casino owners so they lobbied to have it stopped or at least slowed down. They realized if this pace continued they would see even more of a loss of profits. So they lobbied Congress hard and in 2006 The USA passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (or UIGEA).
The UIGEA act prohibited the banks and payment processors from processing any type of transactions associated with internet gambling. This created a problem for players in depositing and withdrawing money from their internet accounts. While the companies continued to operate they had to use payment processors that could circumvent such restrictions. Despite all these laws related to internet gambling, some online casinos continued to take players from the US.
However, many of the bigger internet brands left the US market, the choices for players became incredibly limited. Many said it was hard to find a good internet casino. Alot of reviews sites started to appear that directed players to the sites they so desperately looked for. Some of the sites were better than others, nevertheless they served the need which was created. Shortly after the market started to stabilize and players were playing online again, Black Friday hit the internet gambling world.
Several casinos had found a way around the deposit and withdrawal problems and the internet gambling world was growing yet again. Many started to feel invincible to this new law. The federal government was not really enforcing it and it seemed like they had no intentions of doing so. It was certainly a false sense of security for both the players and online casinos. April 15, 2011, will be remembered in history as the day the internet gambling industry was punished and punished hard. It was the beginning of a new era. The US Department of Justice charged the owners of the three largest poker rooms Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker with bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses, and laundering billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds. The DOJ seized their internet domain names as well as their funds. Suddenly many US players were not just left with nowhere to gamble and no way to recover their funds.
Black Friday forced even more gambling brands to depart the US Market. Everyone was once more scrambling to find new places to gamble, worried if they would ever get their money back, and wondering if anybody was going to stay in the US market. A major blow was struck to internet gambling and several wondered if it would survive. Again the review sites played an important role in discovering places for players to play. Now the market was very limited and it was a struggle to find internet sites. Once again the market slowly started to stabilize and things settled down a bit. The market was damaged but survived.
The other major event was Gray Monday. Grey Monday saw more website names and gambling operations seized. There have been two main disparities with these seizures. This time both large and small sites were seized. Various sectors in the industry were seized including internet poker, casinos, sports books and bingo. Basically nobody was safe now. Now the size of the company did not matter anymore. Nor did the industry you were in. This round of seizures was felt by everyone throughout the gambling industry. The full effects of this seizure have not been felt yet but there’s now even less internet us casino sites available. Will the industry survive? It remains to be seen but it’s been hit hard.
Information from Lifeline Of The USA Internet Gambling Law