Sports betting laws and regulations
Sports gambling laws differ from country to country. In the United States, sports gambling is regarded as illegal in most states save some like Nevada, Montana etc. The legitimacy and general acceptance of sports gambling is highly regulated in several European countries though not criminalized, but Europeans must know the best way to bet tax free – excellent info at GertGambell.net. “Sports gambling” is considered by legalized sports gambling proponents as being a sports hobby for sports enthusiasts to enhance their interest in a sporting event thus being a great benefit to leagues, teams and players etc.
There are plenty of sites that are respectable that will not allow US residents to bet through them although with the advent of the internet and offshore gambling websites it truly is getting tough to govern the sports gambling actions of Americans. For many years the United States argued against the online gambling legal issues by citing the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 passed to stop sports gambling activities between states by making use of wire containing devices and the telephone. Because the internet was not yet invented during those times, legal experts today question whether regulations actually pertained to the internet services or not.
The Justice Department of the US however claimed the Wire Act did relate to all forms of online or internet gambling. In 2006, The congress wrote the SAFE Port Act and passed it to raise the US port security. Attached with this was the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that prohibited US residents from utilization of electronic fund transfer or checks, credit cards etc to finance any internet gambling activity.
What was important was the fact that the act dealt only with the funding of internet betting accounts rather than the specific placing of the bet. Thus an Internet betting law attorney Lawrence Walters stated that this bill which was passed didn’t have effect on the gambling activity of the person but focused only on the restriction of certain transactions that were financial and concerning the banks and internet gambling sites. Thus the bill did not make internet gambling illegal but it made funding ones bet or wager on the web sites illegal criminalizing the financial transaction and not the specific act of betting by the individual.
Rep Barney Frank then introduced in 2007, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act as a way to legalize internet sports gambling and at the same time Rep.es McDermott introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act to regulate betting sites on the web and collect tax on all bets made.
The country of Antigua and Barbuda in 2003 registered a complaint against the US with the World Trade Organization that the US (based on their sports gambling laws and ban on betting on the net) violated their WTO rights. The WTO ruled in their favor and though the US appealed the original ruling was upheld on plenty of occasions. The WTO awarded Antigua and Barbuda trade sanctions worth $21 million and the right to penalize the US copyright and trademark laws.