Ironically in the “The Land Of The Free”, you are not allowed to gamble on the internet within the privacy of your own home.  In 2006 the US government passed the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act), that in short banned online casinos from processing credit card transactions from US online gamblers.

This created a predicament, many offshore online casinos left the market because they did not want to end up being pursed by the US department of justice. However that being said, some online casinos chose to flout these laws, use alternative payment methods or claim that technicalities within this act still allow them to serve US gamblers.

UIGEA does not in fact define online gambling as illegal. The online gambler is not committing a crime by gambling on the internet. The crime is supposedly with the casino for processing the transactions of a US citizen.

Since 2006 US gamblers have still been gambling at many different online casinos.

USA Online Casinos

	Website		Bonus	USA
#1		Lucky Red Casino	$4000		PLAY NOW
#2		Rushmore Casino	$888		PLAY NOW
#3		Cherry Red Casino	$7777		PLAY NOW
#4		Black Diamond Casino	$999		PLAY NOW
#5		Win Palace Casino	$1000		PLAY NOW
#6		High Noon Casino	$2000		PLAY NOW
#7		Silver Oak Casino	$1000		PLAY NOW
#8		Cirrus Casino	$3333		PLAY NOW
#9		Slots Jungle Casino	$2500		PLAY NOW
#10		Cool Cat Casino	1000%		PLAY NOW
#11		Planet 7 Casino	$7777		PLAY NOW

Opposition to UIGEA

The biggest opposition to the UIGEA apart from gamblers was IMEGA (The Interactive Media Entertainment Association) which claims that the act intrudes on Americans civil liberties and spend there time as they wish within their own home.

What This Means For US Gamblers

The main thing is that it is more difficult to get money on to different online casinos and cash out your winnings. More acceptable payment alternatives are made availaible all of the time, however it does mean that at most online casinos players have to go through further aggrevation to deposit and remove funds from an online casino.

In practical terms, we advise players that decide to gamble on the internet not to deposit too much money and cash out your winnings as soon as possible. In 2011, the US DOJ closed down the 3 largest online poker sites within a day and ceized a large ammount of the funds. One of the sites, Pokerstars has returned all players funds. However the other two sites still have their funds ceized by the US DOJ and players at any casino run this risk of having their funds seized. In theory you have done nothing wrong if you get your funds seized and you should eventually get them back. However, you do run the risk of this happening to you should you choose to gamble on the internet.

As usual, we suggest that you weight these risks and make an informed decision based on what you think the likelihood of  your funds being confiscated. By all objective measures, we assume that this risk is fairly low, but it is still a risk.

If you are from the US and wish to gamble on the internet, the online casinos above will be happy to take your business. Most have been in business for a long time and have a stellar reputation.