One of the concepts that a lot of people struggle with when looking at gambling law is confusing regulation with prohibition to the extent that they think that if something that may be permitted under regulation is not permitted, then it is prohibited.
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To put this in simple terms, we might think that since the law does not permit gambling, it is not permitted. Under criminal law though, anything that is not made a crime is not a crime obviously, and is therefore permitted under criminal law.
Criminal law is what is being referred to when we speak of general prohibitions to certain acts, including whether gambling would be legal or not. In cases where it is not legal it is illegal by virtues of criminal statutes.
I’ve read such things on the internet such as gambling may not be legal but it isn’t illegal, which doesn’t make sense and is actually a contradiction. So this can be a little confusing to some people and it’s important that we clarify the way this all works.
Any act not specifically prohibited under criminal law is permitted. There’s nothing particularly special about gambling and we could look at a great number of other practices and compare here.
For instance the law doesn’t explicitly permit you to brush your teeth but this doesn’t in any way suggest teeth brushing would be against the law, or that teeth brushing would involve some sort of grey area under the law.
This might seem like a foolish mistake but it’s one a lot of people make, for instance in viewing certain jurisdictions such as Canada as being a grey market where the legality of online gambling is concerned, in spite of the law there not prohibiting individuals in any way from gambling online.
This confusion has even led to several online gaming sites from pulling out of Canada, so there are practical consequences of not understanding this all properly, even though it’s a very simple concept, the law either expressly prohibits it or it is legal.
What this boils down to is that for the discussion of the legality to even start, we need clear laws against it, or there are simply no laws against it and it is fully legal.
>Regulation Means Allowed Under Certain Circumstances
Regarding the authority of the law to prohibit certain activities, it may permit it under specific circumstances, which frequently but not always involves the government exerting some degree of supervision over permitted gambling operations. Often these rules will be enacted in conjunction with a revenue share plan through taxation.
For instance, rules might stipulate certain requirements, such as that operators obtain a license from the governing body, which incorporates certain limitations, such as not providing gambling to underage individuals, and they also may be subjected to various taxation plans, aside from the usual corporate tax that they would typically pay on earnings.
An instance of gambling oversight would be the digital regulation of gambling in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware. There are particular requirements existing here where operators may present gambling to inhabitants of these states, including that the players physically reside within one of these regions. This is a straightforward process.
Thus, a company in New Jersey cannot provide services to someone in the state of New York, even though the player might live in New Jersey, as this is just the way that it is governed there. In any scenario, this is how regulation functions, permitting it under certain conditions.
Interestingly, monitoring something does not inevitably imply that it is forbidden, at least from a participant’s viewpoint. So you may require a license to manage a gambling enterprise in New Jersey for illustration, but this doesn’t mean that individuals from New Jersey cannot engage in gambling at unlicensed venues, especially those beyond the state. Unexpected results can arise from this.
To ensure that regulation is effective, the regulatory body must possess the legal capacity to authorize or deny it, and as straightforward as this appears, there’s a considerable amount of misunderstanding that emerges here as well. For instance, a number of individuals have been advocating for the U.S. federal government to authorize and oversee online gambling, without adequately contemplating whether they even possess the legal authority to do so, and they quite clearly do not.
Where We’re Headed With This
More and more jurisdictions around the world, especially in Europe, have been moving toward regulation, and in a lot of cases they are doing it in an environment where online gambling is already legal, so this isn’t always to overcome prohibitions and provide a legal alternative.
The regulation of online gambling is already being looked at by several more states beyond the three that have a framework already in place, and this has attracted a great deal of attention among players and observers alike.
While regulation is certainly a step in the right direction where the business and enjoyment of online gambling is concerned, people tend to put way too much weight on its importance, as we will discuss further in the coming articles.
For now though, the legal landscape isn’t anywhere near as clear as many people think, and even more importantly, the practicality of enforcing anti gambling laws where online gambling is involved renders the laws virtually meaningless.
Enforcing gambling laws in the online sphere would be possible in theory but not without turning the jurisdiction into a police state and also committing way more resources than would be practically feasible.
Perception though often becomes reality, and this is essentially what legislators and enforcement officials are counting on, and the perception that the law here matters is often enough to scare both players and poker sites away, as we’ve seen.
So instead of just saying none of this really matters, it does matter, but what matters most is to have a proper understanding of the dynamics at play here, in order to make informed choices.