1 9 December 2002

News:

The Casino Control Comm-ission of the US Virgin Islands adopted on 25 November regulations for the conduct of internet gaming. The commission acted after an opinion by the territory’s attorney general, who stated that online gaming is legal in the US Virgin Islands as long as operators can be certain that players are of lawful age and that they are placing bets only from jurisdictions where such gaming is not illegal.

The Unites States Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in a 20 November opinion (No. 01-30389) that the “Wire Act does not prohibit non-sports internet gambling”.

The UK Gaming Board is to take court action aiming to block the rapid growth of fixed odds betting terminals in betting shops. The Gaming Board takes the view that the terminals, which offer a number of games including roulette and bingo, are gaming machines and should fall under gaming regulations.

Features:

The United States Department of Justice has made clear that the Administration’s policy on online gambling, of all types, is outright prohibition rather than regulation. In a speech on November 20 in London at the Special Briefing on Money Laundering and Online Payment Systems, organised by World Online Gambling Law Report, John G. Malcolm, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Criminal Division, US Department of Justice, said: “the United Kingdom has opted to regulate the online gaming industry. The United States has taken a different approach, opting instead to prohibit online gambling”. We print below the full text of John G. Malcolm’s speech.

I believe it was Sherlock Homes who said if you wanted to solve a case you have to think like a criminal. Taking this advice to heart, if we want to understand how we can prevent money laundering on internet casinos we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the money launderer. How attractive is an internet Casino as a place to launder money and how would someone go about it?

The risks that hosting services are exposed to when they promote online gambling have become unacceptable for some major players in the USA. This article looks at hosts’ and ISPs’ potential liability in the UK.

The current approach to anti-money laundering regulation varies enormously between jurisdictions from those that have adopted a strict regulatory approach, such as some offshore European jurisdictions, to those with a lax approach either to regulation or to enforcement. This article looks at a practical strategy of anti-money laundering regulation.

Malta has regulated online sports betting since 2000. The Lotteries and Gaming Authority is in the process of developing a set of regulations for casino-type games. Other betting operations, such as betting exchanges, will also be catered for in the new regulations, which are expected to be published in January 2003. This article looks at the development of regulation in Malta.