Internet Gambling: An Overview of the Issues

摘要

Internet gambling is a growing industry. Since the mid-1990s, Internet gambling operators have established approximately 1,800 e-gaming Web sites in locations outside the United States, and global revenues from Internet gaming in 2003 are projected to be $5.0 billion dollars. In 1996, Congress created the National Gambling Impact Study Commission to examine the social and economic impacts of gambling, including Internet gambling, by conducting a comprehensive legal and factual study. In its 1999 report, the commission recommended (1) that the federal government prohibit any Internet gambling not already authorized and encourage foreign governments not to harbor Internet gambling organizations, and (2) that Congress pass legislation prohibiting the collection of credit card debt for Internet gambling. The social and economic concerns about Internet gambling raised in the report included underage gambling, pathological gambling, lack of consumer protections, and criminal abuse. In response to these concerns, numerous bills were introduced in Congress to prohibit Internet gambling.