Players were very comfortable with their online playing sites until the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in October 2006. This law, which was attached to the port security bill, makes it unlawful for financial companies to process transactions between U.S. players and their casino gambling companies. The immediate effect was for many of the stock exchange listed companies to depart from the U.S. market, and since then, other companies have been leaving the U.S. market.
Online casino bingo sites have been slowly closing the accounts of their U.S. players. Some online gambling establishments have decided to wait until the regulations are published before making any definite decisions regarding U.S. players. Some sites will still accept U.S. players as real money players. Others will only accept them as for fun players which mean that they are not allowed to play for real money.
In some cases, the I.P. is blocked if the player is from the United States so the player cannot even reach the online site. U.S. players will probably find more sites closed to them when the regulations are published, but this depends on how they are written. They may also find that they won’t be able to engage in financial transactions one day after the rules are released. The sites that continue to deal with U.S. players are outside of U.S. law but the financial institutions that process the financial transactions are not because somewhere there has to be a U.S. bank or financial institution involved. |
