U.S. Online Gambling Laws
Overview of Current Statutes
Americanlaw has always reflected its people’s ambivalence toward gambling.Anti-gambling laws were common in colonial America, yet even in the Northeast,where they were perhaps most numerous, the lottery was a popular form of publicfinance. A majority of states continue to outlaw most forms of gambling, butmost also continue to employ a lottery and to allow several other forms ofgambling as well. There are many federal gamblinglaws, most enacted to prevent unwelcome intrusions of interstate orinternational gambling into states where the activity in question has beenoutlawed. In some cases, Internet gambling is not much different from gamblingby telephone — a bettor…
