President Bush Signs Anti-gambling Bill

On Friday, President Bush signed the new bill that virtually bans online gambling in the United States, making it an official law in the country.

The bill, which was initiated by the Senate and attached to an unrelated bill, the Ports Security Bill, at the last minute, aims to make online gambling inaccessible to U.S. citizens by making it illegal for banks and credit cards companies to process money from them. The new law does not however make online gambling illegal. U.S. gamblers may continue to play online casino and online poker with companies who use 3^rd-party payment institutions like NETeller.

A large number online gambling companies, especially those traded publicly, no longer allow U.S. citizens to gamble through their sites. The industry leaders, 888.com and PartyGaming have ceased to do so even before President Bush signed the bill, which caused those and other companies' stocks value to fall in the London Stock Exchange.

The Justice Department had always considered Internet gambling to be illegal, but until now was not able to stop the rise of domestic gambling. The United States constitutes half of the industry's $15.5 billion revenues from online gambling.

While the Wire Act from 1961 bans sports wagering using telephone lines, the new law encompasses the Internet as well and its supporters claim that it simply clarifies the 1961 act and updates it to our time.

Federal regulators now have 270 days to create regulations on how to block internet gambling-related money transfers due to wagers and other financial transactions.