Home	Tutorial	Online Casino Reviews	Best Online Casinos	Casino Software	Casino News

Online Casino Gambling --- Casino News

March Madness Trouble in U.S.

The United States continues investigations into online casino gambling type violations even though many had hoped that the government would slowly become more lax about internet gambling activities. The debates wage on in Congress and among politicians concerning whether Americans should have the ability to gamble at offshore online casinos and poker gambling sites. Fairly new legislation (late 2006) makes internet gambling illegal for the operators but not for the U.S. citizens (except in states where online gambling is expressly banned at a state level). This is where the social networking site Facebook could come into trouble if the site is found to have supported illegal online gambling activities.

March is the time of the year when office betting pools and other pool betting is extremely popular in the United States due to a slew of popular sports games. The month is affectionately termed March Madness, and even though office betting is technically illegal, the government has turned a blind eye to the activity for years because of the popularity (and it only lasts a month). But this year the federal government is investigating March Madness online casinos betting because many offices and groups took their betting to Facebook groups – and that expressly violates the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

The FBI has begun to investigate the March Madness betting pools on the Facebook social networking site to determine whether they violate the online casinos gambling ban. A FBI spokesperson noted, "There could be a violation if there's a payout and if the operators take a cut." But that information will have to wait until the investigation is complete as there is no indication if the Facebook betting pools were linked to real-money online gambling.