Americans running overseas online casinos may face prosecution

Americans running overseas online casinos may face prosecution

Operators of overseas online casinos – an industry with millions of American customers – are under threat of prosecution because much of what they do is illegal in the United States, said an article on the casinocitytimes.com website.

According to legal experts and the organizers of the conference, called the Global Interactive Gaming Summit and Expo, the operators could face arrest if they entered the United States. "They're exiles," said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California , referring to Americans who have moved overseas to run Internet gambling sites.

Although there may not be warrants for their arrest, Rose said, "they can't be sure." The Justice Department did not respond to questions about the legal status of operators of overseas online casinos. That the conference is being held outside the United States – even though nearly half of all online bets are placed by people in the United States – shows the legal tangle the industry faces.

The federal government contends that under the Wire Wager Act it is illegal to offer sports wagering over the Internet. And the Interactive Gaming Council, a trade association for online casinos, has in the past several months asked five online sportsbetting sites to resign their memberships.