In 1996 we were treated to an explosion of online casinos that swept thru the whole world. The US saw a massive increase in both online casinos and players. This huge increase of online players worried the land-based casino owners so they lobbied to have it stopped or at least slowed down. They realized if this pace continued they’d see a lot more of a decrease in profits. So they lobbied Congress hard and in 2006 The USA passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (or UIGEA).
The UIGEA act prohibited all the banks and payment processors from processing any kind of transactions in connection with online gambling. This created a problem for gamblers in depositing and withdrawing money from their online accounts. While the companies continued to operate they had to use payment processors that could circumvent such restrictions. Despite all of these laws related to online gambling, some online casinos continued to take gamblers in the United States.
On the other hand, lots of the bigger online brands left the United States market, the options for players became quite limited. Many said it was tough to find a good online casino. A lot of ratings sites started to show up that directed players to the sites they so desperately looked for. Some of these sites were superior to others, but they served the need which was created. Soon after the industry started to stabilize and gamblers were playing online again, Black Friday hit the online gambling world.
Several casinos had found a way around the deposit and withdrawal problems and the online gambling world was growing yet again. Many started to feel invincible to this new law. The federal government was not really enforcing it and it looked like they had no intentions of doing so. This was certainly a false feeling of security for both the gamblers and online casinos. April 15, 2011, will go down in history as the day the online gambling industry was punished and punished hard. It was the start of a new era. The US Department of Justice charged the principals of the three largest poker sites Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker with bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses, and laundering billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds. The DOJ seized their domain names as well as their funds. Instantly many US gamblers were not just left with nowhere to gamble and no way to recuperate their funds.
Black Friday forced many more gambling brands to depart the United States Marketplace. Everyone was yet again scrambling to find new places to gamble, worried when they would ever get their funds back, and wondering if anybody would stay in the US market. A major blow was struck to online gambling and many people wondered if it would survive. Again the review sites played an essential role in finding places for players to play. Now the market was very limited and it was a struggle to find online sites. Once again the market slowly started to stabilize and things settled down a bit. The market was damaged but survived.
The other major event was Gray Monday. Grey Monday saw more internet domain names and gambling operations seized. There was clearly two main disparities with these seizures. This time both large and small sites were seized. Many different sectors in the industry were seized including online poker, casinos, sports books and bingo. Basically no one was safe now. Now the size of the company did not matter anymore. Nor did the industry you were in. This round of seizures was experienced by everyone throughout the gambling industry. The full effects of this seizure have not been felt yet but there’s now even less online US casinos available. Will the industry survive? It remains to be seen but it’s been hit hard.