Bookmaking

The general role of the bookmaker is to act as a market maker for sports wagers, most of which have a binary outcome: a team either wins or loses. The bookmaker accepts both wagers, and maintains a spread (the vigorish) which will ensure a profit regardless of the outcome of the wager. The Federal Wire Act of 1961 was an attempt by the US government to prevent illegal bookmaking. However, this Act does not apply to other types of online gambling. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the meaning of the Federal Wire Act as it pertains to Online gambling.

Sports Beting Legality

Bookmakers, spread betting firms and betting exchanges offer a variety of ways to wager over the Internet on the results of sporting events, the most popular being fixed-odds gambling.

Antigua and Barbuda

The government of the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, which licenses Internet gambling entities, made a complaint to the World Trade Organization about the U.S. government’s actions to impede online gaming. The Caribbean country won the preliminary ruling but WTO’s appeals body somewhat narrowed that favorable ruling in April 2005.

Many of the companies operating out of Antigua are publicly traded on various stock exchanges, specifically the London Stock Exchange. Antigua has met British regulatory standards and has been added to the UK’s “white list”, which allows licensed Antiguan companies to advertise in the UK.

Australia

On 28 June 2001 the Australian Government passed the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA). The government said that the IGA was important to protect Australians from the harmful effects of gambling.

The IGA targets the providers of interactive gambling services, not their potential or actual customers. The IGA makes it an offence to provide an interactive gambling service to a customer physically present in Australia, but it is not an offence for Australian residents to play poker or casino games online. In stark contrast to the USA, sports betting online is also completely legal in Australia, with many state government licensed sportsbooks in operation, such as Centrebet, Sportingbet & Betfair.

The offense applies to all interactive gambling service providers, whether based in Australia or offshore, whether Australian or foreign owned.

France

On March 5, 2009, France proposed new laws to regulate and tax Internet gambling. Budget minister Eric Woerth stated the French gambling market would expand to adapt to “Internet reality.” He further stated “Rather than banning 25,000 websites, we’d rather give licenses to those who will respect public and social order. The new regulations are expected to take effect in June 2010. Betting exchanges, however, will remain illegal under the new plans.

India

Online gambling is a banned offense in the state of Maharashtra under the “Bombay Wager Act“. Other acts/legislations are silent with respect to online gambling/online gaming in India.

Israel

The Israel gambling law (Israeli Penal Law 5737 – 1977) does not refer specifically to online gambling (land based gambling and playing games of chances is prohibited except in the cases of the Israel Lottery and the Israeli Commission for Sports Gambling). In December 2005, the Attorney General ordered all online gambling operations, online backgammon included, to close their businesses and at the same time commanded credit card companies to cease cooperating with online gambling websites. In May 2007, the Attorney General had excluded the online backgammon website Play65 of the ruling, due to “the unique circumstances of the site activity”, allowing to return to full activity in Israel.

Russia

Russian legislation, enacted in December 2006, prohibits online gambling altogether (as well as any gambling relying on telecommunications technology).

United States

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in November 2002 that the Federal Wire Act prohibits electronic transmission of information for sports betting across telecommunications lines but affirmed a lower court ruling that the Wire Act “‘in plain language’ does not prohibit Internet gambling on a game of chance.”

Some states have specific laws against online gambling of any kind. Also, owning an online gaming operation without proper licensing would be illegal, and no states are currently granting online gaming licenses.