Online gambling in Las Vegas in limbo for another year

It seems that legislators in Nevada won’t be tackling the issue of Internet gambling for another year. This leaves the legal issues of online gambling in limbo. Two years ago a bill was passed allowing Internet gambling to exist under the same federal law as regular gambling. Things were shaken up a bit in the last year when the Gaming Control Board received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice stating that the federal government has determined that Internet gambling is illegal. The board has considered allowing Internet gambling within Nevada for in-state residents only.

The most obvious way of regulating online gambling whilst trying to keep it in-state is to stop the use of credit and bank cards as a method of payment. Instead, there could be a suggested system of billing customer accounts. That way the companies could keep tabs one who is gambling and could insure that all gambling, online or otherwise, was kept in the State of Nevada.


The biggest problem is that any legal action would be viewed as regulating the big Casino companies whilst other offshore companies would benefit. The big Casinos however view that they have proved that they can regulate their business and their business does also extend to the Internet. However, for a while the whole issue will be caught up in legislative limbo and the changes are still on the horizon.