Casino News: Could online casinos finally be coming to North America?

Could the door that permits online gambling is in North America be inching open? The recent clarification of the 1961 Wire Act forbade the transmitting of bets through technology.

Until very recently, Internet gambling has been cracked down on by federal authorities, who believed they were operating within the Wire Act. Many online gambling sites and online casinos were forced to move their business interests to off-shore companies, a number of which were located inside the United Kingdom.

"This is big news for gambling companies based in the States, who previously had their business restricted to traditional casinos... 2012 will be the year of online gaming in America". Said Michael Charalambous, Managing Director of LiveCasinos.co.uk, the informational live casino website.

The Wire Act has also meant that even relatively mild forms of gaming, such as state lotteries, had been under the threat of prosecution under the past interpretation of the law. Now it looks likely that, along with casinos run on Indian reservations, operators might be able to go online with their gaming.

Although which states will opt to legalise online gaming remains uncertain, it is apparent that any new laws will only cover citizens living inside the state borders. For instance, if Ontario passes legislation permitting online casinos, the website itself must be based within Ontario, as must all players at the website.

Charalambous continued, "To avoid opportunistic web entrepreneurs stealing a march on them, casino operators are going to have to be ready to migrate their brand online... and fast. If the existing stakeholders in current conventional casinos, like the many native American casino operators who have run businesses exempt from the gambling laws, can remain major stakeholders in the online world, then there will be no threat to their business. Even a drop-off in conventional casino visits will translate into a pickup of online business".