By Samantha  Williams

As an eventual sequence of offline gambling, like horse racing, lotteries, sports events, Bingo, casinos, slot machines, roulette and Poker and so on, the scenario changed to the inevitable Internet in 1995.  The U.S. Company launched the website with comparatively a fraction of the investment needed for starting a Casino in Nevada in millions of dollars.  With just 17 employees it managed the show to run with 18 different casino games.  Just from this starting point there was no looking back and the proliferation of hundreds of institutions jumping the band-wagon of running websites for online gambling continued.  Interestingly governments of foreign countries evinced interest on opening their own sites for conducting online lotteries in multi-various languages with an eye on the abundance of potential existing for online gambling and millions of dollars on revenue just for the taking. 

In 1996, the Stock Market of U.S. announced listing of the stocks of online gambling ventures and this opened up the awareness among many others as well that what online gambling is all about and what is in it for them.  A large contingent of U.S. gambling organizations running their outfits in their localities joined the stream by extending their activities on the cyber-world.  The profit margins published were amazing – while the entrepreneurs were accustomed to 8 to 16% margins in their real world casinos after the laborious tasks involved being handled tactfully, the net-world gains were over 24% by the U.S. Company started the game.  In the first year itself another Company netted a turnover of $48 million which was so glaring too many eyes.

The U.S. federal governments did not keep quiet, perhaps by the lobbying of the vested interests and woke up to curtail the run-away success of online gambling, for fear of loss of revenue actually due to them.  Almost all the U.S. States formulated laws to regularize the online gambling transactions, declaring them illegal and transfer of funds for wagering by financial institutions inside the country was stringently curbed.  The legal jargon as usual was elaborate to cripple the activities of online gambling sites. 

This necessitated the online institutions to circumvent the procedures of incorporation of gambling establishments by registering in other countries and conducting financial transactions in banks of offshore and online net-banks.  This made the efforts of imposition of restrictions futile and the online gambling goes on unabated with the support of netizens the world-wide and also Americans with offshore bank accounts.

Even by a conservative estimate, a staggering 20 million people take part in some of the online gambling games.  Judging by the growth in the last decade in all the countries, where more and more people are fancied by the online games and also the potential existing for expansion of online gambling sites, it is estimated that by the year 2020 there will be a mammoth population of 160 million people playing online gambling.  The overall market that is to be tapped in the years to come is projected to be a scintillating $49 billion.

So by any yardstick, online gambling is very healthy and will go up by leaps and bounds in the years to come.

By Samantha Williams 

In the legality muddle of online gambling the battle is going on and on tirelessly between the governments and online gambling sites.  The tussle between the interested parties belonging to national levels centers mainly on one thing.  Is it justified to ban the online gambling transactions, while more than 54 nations have legalized the same world-wide.  On moral or ethical grounds can any government authority curb the individual right of the online gambling game players?  This is the million dollar question….nay trillion dollar question to be resolved once and for all.  As for the U.S. restrictions on offshore operations of online gambling is concerned, it all started just 4 years back in 2003 when the two Caribbean nations of Antigua and Barbuda filed a petition before the World Trade Organization, opposing the arbitrary ban imposed by the U.S. laws, curtailing the offshore operations of online gambling sites.   These two nations had much in stake to lose by the ban of the mighty U.S. by intervening into their business.  Online gambling was the cash cow for revenue for these tiny island nations and they can’t afford to forfeit the income just because a powerful neighbor objects to it.  Early in the 1990s there were nearly 100 sites engaged in online gambling business, employing around 5000 employees.  It was a major part of their economy and arising out of the imposition of U.S. ban, it dwindled gradually to less than 40 companies in 2003 and these nations cited these points in support of their petition before the WTO. They submitted that they are ensuring strict vigilance on online gambling operations and that there is no need for interfering with the operations, inasmuch as it amounted to violation of commitments made by any country towards cross-border services.  Thereupon WTO appointed a three member panel to go into the matter and to decide whether the U.S. crackdown amounts to violations of justified international trade practices. The U.S. law enforcing officials submitted a counter stating that online gambling does not come under the purview of their commitments to such trade practices; that there is large scope of money laundering through online gambling operations; and that allowing online gambling would create serious social problems in the society with dangers of psychological problems to a segment thereof. After detailed deliberations and hearing the views of both the parties concerned, the panel of WTO gave its ruling in December 2007 that U.S. crackdown amounts to violation of the accepted norms for world trade practices within countries and awarded a compensation of US$21 million per year to Antigua and Barbuda. Not satisfied with the amount of compensation awarded, the two island nations are making further efforts for striking a deal with U.S. authorities at the highest level.  With this objective, a high level delegation headed by Dr. Cort, Minister of Finance and Economy has started a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador for Trade Representations.  Dr. Cort stated that while they are satisfied with the ruling of the WTO Panel in awarding compensation, the quantum is insufficient – when compared to their original claim of US$ 304 million. Also restricting the compensation to only horse racing which is just 10% of the online gambling operations, according to Dr. Cort, is disappointing.  The outcome of this high level summit is eagerly awaited by relevant circles of online gambling industry.