Internet Gambling, Online Gambling :: Journalistic Essays

Online Gambling There is a major ignore to be dealt with, which is spreading with little regulatory oversight and no sound screens against participation by the young and the vulnerable. Internet gambling represents one of the instantaneous growing segments of online activity with more than seven hundred web sites instanter providing users the opportunity to wager everything from casino games to sporting events. According to internet interrogation firms, the industry will pull in $1.5 billion in world-wide revenues this year. That descriptor is expected to hit at least $6 billion by 2006. Also, a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American life history Project concluded that $4.5 million Americans have take chancesd online and that 1 million gamble online everyday. There are m any(prenominal) different issues dealing with the legalization of online gambling. The genuine law dealing with online gambling is the Wire Transfer Act of 1961. below this statute, the law is v iolated when telephone lines are used in interstate spicyway or foreign commerce to place wagers. The statute also parallel bars the transmission of entropy that assists betters to gamble on sports events and contests. Recently, Congress have been energetic in seeking to pass further legislation to restrict betting on the web. Last November, the Senate proposed the Internet Gambling bar Act. This statute would bind it a crime to knowingly use the internet or some other interactive computer services to place, receive, or otherwise make a bet or wager or send, receive, or invite information assisting in the placing of a bet or wager. Penalties would be as high as $20,000 and 4 years in prison. However, in a balloting in July, the bill narrowly missed obtaining the two thirds majority essential to pass the bill. In May, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act was introduced. This statute would criminalize and prohibit any person act in a gambling business from knowingly accepting from another(prenominal) person who is involved in internet gambling a credit card or extension of credits, an electronic transfer of funds, or any instrument payable through a financial institution. This would shield certain(a) financial institutions from liability as long as they do not know that their facilities are being used for online gambling. This bill has also not yet been passed. Either of these Acts would greatly help the problems of online gambling. There are a number of reasons why this booming industry should provoke more worry among policy makers.