US Players Say Yes to Online Casino Gambling

US clients spent $8 billion gambling online in 2009, in spite of restrictions. A recent poll conducted by US News and World Report showed that people in the US want the freedom to gamble online: more than 91 percent of respondents answered "yes" to the question, "should online gambling be legalized?"

For these and other reasons, Congressman Barney Frank is making serious efforts to overturn the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, proposing instead to set up a regulatory and taxation regime for the industry in America.

The paternalistic approach of the US government is mystifying, especially in an age where the majority of users protect their computers from potential fraud by using anti-virus and other software.

The truth is that when Internet gambling started in the 1990's, some of the site owners did malicious acts that sent worms and viruses to people's computers, they did send out quite a bit of spam, and they had malfunctioning software that stole from players. However, as the Internet progressed, Google and other search engines successfully filtered out these sites.

Still, in 2006, President Bush signed the UIGEA, putting a federal ban on banks transferring money to businesses and individuals carrying out gambling operations. Most of the world's online gambling operators reside outside the US, and while the law is not an outright gambling ban, or prohibition, for several of these operators, it may as well have been.

At CasinoMaze we do not cover sites that allow US players, however, with enforcement of the UIGEA set to begin in the coming months, we will continue to provide important news to our US readers and report anything we know as soon as possible.