Enforcing U.S. Online Casinos Laws
Internet gambling in the United States, whether you agree with the law or not,
is unlawful. But that hasn’t stopped some operators from attempting to fill the
gap and facilitate online casinos gambling now that the gambling via the
internet is getting increasingly harder. The North Carolina police department
announced a major raid of three online casinos and gambling locations that were
operating in full view of the law enforcement officials.
The raid took place in Galveston, North Carolina and a more than three month
investigation into the online casinos gambling operation was underway before
last week’s police raid. According to the police, the operators of the illegal
gambling facility were not really attempting to hide their operation from law
enforcement. The Chief of the Cherryville Police Department, Woody Burgess, (a
neighboring town) commented that “you could ride by and see computer monitors
turning like a slot machine.”
It’s surprising that the operators would choose such a blatantly obvious method
for operating the online casinos considering how hard the U.S. government has
come down on offshore companies participating in internet gambling activities.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed in October of 2006 and
makes the actual operators of the online gambling businesses fully criminally
liable while the players and patrons are largely protected from federal
legislation – some individual states have their own separate laws concerning
internet gambling.
So considering the national ban on online casinos gambling, the issue is pretty
black and white for Chief of the Gastonia Police Department, Terry Sult;
“Someday the legislature might legalize gambling but until that time comes we’re
going to enforce the law.” There are several companies and operators that will
face charges related to the raid in the coming weeks. |