More support to end US internet ban

Author: Simon Dexter

For more than a year, an increasing number of Americans have advocated an end to the ban on internet gambling and this week came news that their ranks had been swollen by two rather influential individuals – associate professors Kathryn LaTour, from the University of Nevada and June Cotte, from the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

Both women are avowed non-gamblers, yet next February, their report, entitled Blackjack in the Kitchen, will be published. In it, they recommend the full legalisation and regulation of online gambling in the United States and Canada.

Neither academic sees the point in maintaining the ban on online gambling: “The horse is out of the barn,” commented professor Cotte, “there is a huge amount of people [already] doing this.” Conscious that the industry is worth an estimated billion to billion a year in north America, keeping the ban in place only serves to shift internet gambling offshore, the study suggests. The tax implications of bringing this industry under the auspices of state and federal legislation are entirely positive.

Neither woman expected their study to yield such a change of heart. “If you told me I was going to come to that conclusion at the start of research, I would have laughed,” said Cotte. If her recommendations find favour amongst legislators, US-based poker players could soon be laughing once more too.

Tags: American Legislation, poker, US poker

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 10:51 am and is filed under News & Promotions Blog.