News
Lawmakers Mull Amending Wire Act to Restrict Online Gambling
By Colby Adams
printLeaders of a senate panel Wednesday called for stronger oversight of online gaming to reverse the effects of a 2011 U.S. Justice Department memorandum that loosened restrictions on the industry. Under the department's December 2011 interpretation of the 1961 Interstate Wire Act, restrictions on gambling apply to sports wagers and not to Internet poker and other online games. That reading has opened the door for criminals to exploit the U.S. financial system, said ranking members of the Senate's Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance. The memo has engendered "a regulatory race to the bottom," said Sen. Dean Heller...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
An agreement between a global online gaming company and an Atlantic City casino to offer Internet wagering in New Jersey faces an uphill battle to gain the necessary approval from state regulators, say analysts.
Fueled by the need to fill budgetary coffers, the expansion of casinos in the United States will likely foster another sort of growth-more state anti-money laundering laws.
In the wake of a Florida crackdown on cashless gambling operations, some large banks have begun reviewing their relationships with Internet sweepstakes parlors, say compliance officers.
Since the 2011 indictment by the U.S. Justice Department of some of the most prominent online gambling sites in the world, the financial risks posed by Internet betting have changed, believes Christine Duhaime, barrister and solicitor at Vancouver-based Duhaime Law.
Two of the world's largest online poker Web sites will forfeit $547 million to settle U.S. Justice Department allegations that they violated anti-gambling laws and deceived financial institutions into processing their payments.
The conviction of a payment processor accused of aiding Internet gambling companies highlights the compliance hurdles anti-money laundering officers face when maintaining accounts for merchant transactions, say bank and law enforcement officials.
A U.S. Justice Department memorandum clearing the way for online gaming may exacerbate compliance woes for banks operating under a 2006 anti-gambling law, say attorneys and industry groups.
As some states inch toward legalizing online gambling, they are unlikely to get much cooperation from financial institutions concerned that they'll be held liable for processing even legal bets, say analysts.
Undercover investigators, acting as a phony payment processor, used U.S. bank accounts to see how offshore gambling operations transacted more than $30 million with their American clients, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved a measure Wednesday that would legalize some Internet gambling and diminish the compliance duties of financial institutions monitoring for online bets and payouts.
U.S. banks are still fine tuning policies on when to report suspicious activity and reject transactions tied to online gambling after the passing of a June 1 enforcement deadline.
An online gambling ban that requires banks to monitor for illegal transactions is unlikely to be overturned before a June 1 enforcement deadline, despite congressional efforts to repeal the law.
U.S. Justice Department cases tied to a controversial ban on online gambling will likely complicate congressional efforts to overturn the law before a June enforcement deadline, say government officials and consultants.
Partisan bickering and a backlog of legislation are stymieing congressional attempts to overturn a controversial ban on online gambling before a June enforcement deadline, according to analysts.
The federal ban on processing transactions tied to Internet gambling will likely be overturned at some point, but lawmakers have yet to address how to best mitigate related money laundering risks, according to a former IRS agent who recently testified before U.S. lawmakers.
A bill that would legalize Internet gambling within the United States through licenses issued by the Treasury Department will likely be approved by the House of Representatives, say analysts.
U.S. financial regulators Friday granted financial institutions a six-month delay in enforcing a controversial Internet gambling ban that will require banks to freeze transactions tied to the illegal organizations.
A call by over a dozen lawmakers to delay a Dec. 1 deadline requiring banks to block transactions tied to Internet gambling won't likely sway the White House, say analysts.
A Canadian national laundered nearly $380 million and illegally processed payouts from online gambling companies to their U.S.-based customers, according to a federal indictment released Thursday. The indictment seeks more than half-billion dollars in forfeitures.
Odds that banks won't have to implement programs to detect online gambling have markedly improved this year after past efforts to halt the regulation fell flat, according to gaming experts.