On Friday, the U.S. Senate quietly passed a bill that forbids American credit card companies and banks from processing money and payments to online gambling companies. The bill was attached as a rider to another bill that aimed to enhance U.S. port security.
This, in fact, ends such online gambling companies, such as Party Gaming and 888.com business in the United States, since money cannot be transferred from the client to the company.
Shares of the publicly traded online gambling companies have fallen considerably on the London Stock Exchange: Party Gaming dropped 56 percent, 888 holdings went down 27 percent and Sportingbet's stocks fell 56 percent.
Within nine months, the Justice Department and the Federal Reserve will draft a list which will detail the online gaming companies that banks and credit card companies are prohibited from making payments to.
The online gambling websites themselves will also be prohibited (one President Bush signs the bill) from receiving U.S. payments, but because they are mostly based overseas, it is doubtable if U.S. authorities will be able to prosecute them.
The Senate's bill followed a series of other legal attack. on the online gaming industry. In July, David Carruthers, CEO of London-listed firm BetOnSports, was arrested under the charges of racketeering and mail fraud, while making an international air connection in Dallas.
In September, Peter Dicks, then chairman of Sportingbet, a British online company, was arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport for allegedly violating a Louisiana law against online gambling. Dicks was released and returned to Britain on Friday.
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