Sports gambling laws
Sports gambling laws differ from country to country. In the US, sports’ gambling is considered illegal in most states save a few like Nevada, Montana etc. The legality and general acceptance of sports gambling is highly regulated in several European countries though not criminalized, but Europeans must know how to bet tax free – great info at GertGambell.net. “Sports gambling” is considered by legalized sports gambling proponents as a sports hobby for sports fans to increase their interest in a sporting event thus being a great benefit to leagues, teams and players etc.
There are many sites that are reputable that do not allow US citizens to bet through them but with the advent of the internet and offshore gambling sites it is getting more difficult to govern the sports gambling activities of Americans. For many years the US argued against the internet gambling legal issues by citing the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 passed to stop sports gambling activities between the states by using wire containing devices and the telephone. Because the internet was not yet invented at that time, legal experts today question whether the law actually pertained to the internet services or not.
The Justice Department of the US however claimed that the Wire Act did relate to all forms of online or internet gambling. In 2006, The congress wrote the SAFE Port Act and passed it to increase the US port security. Attached to this was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that prohibited US citizens from usage of electronic fund transfer or checks, credit cards etc to finance any internet gambling activity.
What was important was the fact that the act dealt only with the funding of internet gambling accounts and not the actual placing of the bet. Therefore an Internet gambling law attorney Lawrence Walters stated that the bill that was passed had no impact on the gambling activity of the individual but centered only on the restriction of certain transactions that were financial and relating to the banks and internet gambling sites. Thus the bill did not make internet gambling illegal but it made funding ones bet or wager on the internet sites illegal – criminalizing the financial transaction and not the actual act of betting by the individual.
Rep Barney Frank then introduced in 2007, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act in order to legalize internet sports gambling and at the same time Rep.es McDermott introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act to regulate betting sites online and collect tax on all bets made.
The country of Antigua and Barbuda in 2003 filed a complaint against the US with the World Trade Organization that the US (based on their sports gambling laws and ban on gambling on the internet) violated their WTO rights. The WTO ruled in their favor and though the US appealed the original ruling was upheld on plenty of occasions. The WTO awarded Antigua and Barbuda trade sanctions worth $21 million and the right to penalize the US copyright and trademark laws.