WPT Enterprises Inc., the company who brought the World Poker Tour to television sets and helped propel the poker craze, has decided to open an online casino overseas for European online casinos fans. The law and legal parameters, as well as the Justice Department, do not permit the online casino, or any online gambling sites for that matter, to accept online bets from U.S. residents. Even with this precaution in mind, WPT has decided to gamble on the possibility that its online gambling site will be a huge success.
'Existing state and federal statutes cover many forms of Internet gambling,' said a Justice Department spokesman, Paul Bresson. 'It is the position of the Department of Justice that online gambling activity occurs both where the gambling business is located and where the bettor is located.' Because WPT has had such a significant role in raising the popularity of poker among online casino and land-based poker fans, it now wants to also receive a piece of the pie. Due to the current laws in the U.S., WPT has decided to block all American online casino fans from placing bets on their site, and only allow European online casinos bettors to gamble.
Online gambling law, according to scholars, is considered unclear and fuzzy, because most of the relevant federal statutes, including the 1961 Wire Communications Act, were devised and implemented long before the Internet era. WPT is definitely entering uncharted legal territory with its new online casino, but it is trying to keep a healthy balance by bringing the thrill of poker to its fellow Americans, while providing poker fun and excitement to online casino poker loves overseas.
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