by Jerry "Jet" Whittaker

Dec 22, 2006

Sport gambling law

Gaming and gambling in the United States and other part of country where gambling is legalized have undergone a great boom. During the past decade most states have expanded legalized gaming that is including regulated casino-style games and lotteries. There has been an explosion in opening Native casinos. Gambling and betting online has increased exponentially. Gambling law US.com presents and explains and also analyzes the patchwork of state and federal and state gambling laws that apply to the boom.

Meaning of gambling

The words gamble and gambling is generally used to discuss an activity that may run afoul of applicable criminal laws. The word gaming is usually reserved for those instances where the activity has been specifically legalized by applicable laws, or where the activity is exempted from the criminal laws. Thus, playing a casino style game for the profit website online in the United States is referred to as gambling. Since no state has yet finalized any law specifically authorizing a for the profit making website operator to offer any casino games. The two words are not mutually exclusive. A gambling activity could turn out to be gambling where applicable laws regulating that particular gaming are violated and similarly, a gambling activity may turn out to be gaming if it is exempted from a given criminal statute. More precisely playing a card game for money in a purely social setting where no one earns anything from the game other than as a mere player would be gaming if such social games were excluded from the reach of the criminal laws in the state where the game takes place.

Importance of law

It might be argued that there is no need for these kinds of laws. If people want to engage in the inherently losing proposition that is gambling just let them dig their own financial graves. On the other hand, there are distinct consumer protection aspects to this issue as well. Gambling addiction like alcoholism is widely recognized as a disease and the potential for unscrupulous Internet gambling operators to fleece the vulnerable is very high. Dealing with effectively unregulated offshore gambling sites is hard enough. It is very unsure to play and gamble in illegal places as no body is sure to get back their credit card or bank account information end up floating around on a fraud ring's list. For sports betting, or games involving other public information like state lotto numbers, the actual odds and results are at least available in some verifiable form. 

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