In a message dated 7/12/2006 3:40:30 AM Pacific Standard Time,
harry.porter@verizon.net writes:
btw, as noted elsewhere, there's no federal law prohibiting online
gaming -- not does the new law under consideration include such a
prohibition (despite Rep. Conyer's urgings). It strictly is limited
to a ban on financial payments to offshore casinos.
Of course, it's been a couple of years since any US bank has permitted
payments directly to an offshore casino (to my knowledge, there are
none now), a consequence of considerable federal pressure. Likewise,
when PayPal was acquired by eBay, corporate made the decision to
suspend such payments. (eBay also won't handle resale of your
"collectable" Playboys sitting in your basement these days 
This is why credit card payments are now made to independent financial
institions such as Neteller and FirePay. These are free-standing
instituions, not online casino shills - such as Intercasino originally
set up. The question is whether the payment ban will extend to any
firm known to transfer funds to offshore casinos.
That's reaching a little far in my book. But I guess I can see it
happening, even with Neteller which does sizable non-casino merchant
funding (although the withdrawal of US credit card casino funding was
a boon).
Time will tell, huh? (But I think you'll find that your transactions
will continue to go through for the time being, even should it pass
the Senate.)
- Harry
The U.S. Department of Justice does consider any transfer of monies for
gambling purposes by wire illegal and a felony under the Federal Wire Wager Act (Go
to Pub. L. No 87-216, 75 Stat.491, 552-553 (1961.) This is an old piece of
Federal Legislation but applies to online as if it was any other wire transfer.
But always there is this enforcement problem. For example, it is illegal to
tap phones in this country and illegal to tape record conversations on phones
without notice. However if you need to do so, you can go around the law by
hiring outside the country. The difficulty of tracing this behavior outside the
country is bursting with complications and legal difficulties so is never done.
The same is true with making gambling online illegal.
China
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