Issues surrounding the legality of gambling in different regions of the world
Ever since the development of the first virtual casino in 1995, the growth of the gambling industry has been non-stop. One of the most well-known providers of gambling stats stated that the demand and use of interactive virtual gaming services will record a growth of about 45%. This statement was made public in 2009 and the result was later seen in 2012 when the industry grew from $21.2 billion to $30 billion.
The act of gambling is not the same experience for everyone. Due to this variation, some countries banned gambling completely due to series of addictive and harmful behavior born of the act. In some other countries that did not ban it, it was placed under control with heavy licensing requirements. Here, we will be examining some of the legal aspects surrounding gambling in general.
Gambling legality in countries.
As of June 2010, the number of legal online casinos was about 2,680 that were within 85 jurisdictions. Casinos online were owned by different companies, totaling 665. The legality of these gambling jurisdictions was categorized under three points.
The first point is the Caribbean jurisdiction. In Costa Rica, for starters, companies to provide gambling services to regions outside their country do not need any specialized kind of license. This makes it more attractive for corporations looking to enter the gambling scene. Another interesting thing about the jurisdiction is that Costa Rica does not levy any income tax on income that is from regions outside the country. The second point for the legal gambling jurisdiction was small parts of Europe including countries like Malta, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, and some more countries. The last point of jurisdiction is covered by the more prominent European countries. The main reason for the legalization in these regions is based on the large monetary income tag attached to gambling. However, this was not the case in other regions. In the United States, for several years the Department of Justice and courts conflicted with the legalization of gambling sites in the country. In 2011, they released a statement on the issue following the law of the country, putting an end to the indictment of online games providers. After the statement, certain states in the US allowed some forms of gambling while some others were still prohibited.
Reasons for prohibition.
In 2008, professor Gill Valentine conducted a study on gambling among young people. The results of the study found that around 10-14% of young people are at risk of developing serious gambling issues. According to the findings of the study, in approximation, 5-7% already have a gambling problem. Studies like this and many more are the reasons impending the legality of gambling in many countries. As a solution, legal statutes have been created to place major licensing requirements for casinos.
The current age of technological development has brought about the creation of several loops to execute criminal activities. One of the most common of this kind is money laundering through casinos. One of the popular ways of this happening is when a player opens a gambling account and places equal bets with low odds on two possible outcomes. The result of this is winning almost the same amount of money. This has been done several times over in different countries and as such has affected the legalization of gambling in general.
Every year, the developments on the gambling scene become more, making the organization more acceptable on a global scale. The reason for this is because security measures are being input into the systems in use, making it easy for the authorities to identify rule breakers. It is evident that with optimal security, the gambling industry will only continue to increase.