Utah attempts to keep online gambling at bay
Posted by admin - 28/01/09 at 02:01 am
Online gambling matters in Utah will be dealt with in accordance to this states’ local laws meaning there will be no online gambling at all.
State law-makers advocate for a resolution to make Congress respect its states’ rights with regard to online gambling after being worried about potential future federal deals on online gambling in WTO. According to a source in Salt Lake City Tribune, endorsement of the resolution by the Congress will leave online gambling fans with no hopes to ever play online on the territory of the state.
According to Republican Representative Sheryl Allen, the negotiations for the next WTO stage are presently in recess allowing states to join efforts and protect their states’ rights.
Sheryl Allen advocates for the Congress to endorse a resolution which leaves online gambling matters within the framework of local legislature leading to illegal status of Internet gambling in Utah as before.
Internet wagering in all forms is not permitted under Utah Law and makes local citizens to drive to Idaho state to purchase lottery tickets or set their feet to Vegas casinos located in nearby Nevada State. At present Utah law-makers fear that easy access to Internet gambling just outside Utah borders could bypass the local prohibition in case federal deal on online gambling is reached.
Sheryl Allen further underlines that in the computer era the access to online gaming sites is really easy directly from home. In this connection Utah International Trade Commission which is governed by her filed the draft resolution to Congress in attempt to protect the states’ laws in relation to online gambling. Allen makes her point that for her it is an issue of states’ rights, nothing else.
It is worth saying that in the majority of USA states online gambling is allowed though restricted to some extent. But Utah and Hawaii are the only states which territories are completely casino-free including online gambling of all types.
The preamble to the story of online gambling is worth mentioning. Back in 1994 the United States endorsed gambling in the web by ratification of the special agreement at the WTO, dubbing Internet gaming as a sort of recreation.
One can also recall the legal confrontation of the US legislators with the government of Antigua and Barbuda over Internet gambling bans in the USA. The long legal proceedings resulted in the defeat for the US negotiators despite two appeals. The battle was lost but not the war as it turned out later.
The subsequent move of the USA was unprecedented as it single-handedly withdrew its Internet gambling agreement from the WTO making ground for further discussions and talks on online gambling issues with several countries. Still, the details of the talks were no published leaving common Americans guess what Internet gambling had to do with “reasons of national security”, the official explanation of the US legislators in relation to the results of the negotiations.
More to say, as reported by Salt Lake City Tribune, in 2006 during the last night session just before the recess the American Congress enacted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act shifting the blame from the innodividuals engaging in online gaming to financial institutions and companies providing services of money transfers to online gaming websites. The money transfers to online casinos via US financial companies have thus been prohibited.
The only online betting services which were not touched by the law included Fantasy sports, online lotteries and horse racing.
According to the words of the head of Democracy and Trade Forum Peter Riggs the good thing is that US states consider online gambling as part of their states’ rights. The bad thing in Riggs’ opinion is that the results of the negotiations and details of the deal are still kept in secret despite being very important for both the USA states and innodividual gamers.
