The Legal Answer to Cyber-Gambling

Abstract:     
In 2009, federal legislation went into place that essentially prohibited online gambling by prohibiting American financial institutions from facilitating cash transfers to and from Internet gambling sites. Unfortunately, due to jurisdictional limitations and the creativity of gaming operators, this new law is unlikely to meet the needs of American lawmakers. In fact, most of the attempts to prohibit or regulate Internet gambling have failed, and - by the very nature of the industry - are doomed to fail. This paper proposes a market-based solution that provides gamblers with a fair game, reduces social costs of online gambling, and provides gaming operators, both from within and outside of this nation, the ability to run a well-regulated online business. Legal, unregulated web pages will still be available, but regulated sites will provide competition that may run most crooked operations out of business.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 18

Keywords: gambling, gaming, internet gambling, internet gaming, cyber-gaming, cyber-gambling

JEL Classification: K14, K23, K43

Accepted Paper Series