Next month the EU officials are going to investigate the online gambling ban that is currently in force in the United States. The USA instituted the controversial Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 in order to restrict transactions between American players and offshore internet casinos. Though, with the UIGEA, the US Department of Justice started prosecuting European online gambling companies. 888 Holdings Plc, Party Gaming and others could be imposed fines for their pre-UIGEA gambling activity in the United States. The European Commission has started an official investigation into the US online gambling restrictions. The US and the EU officials will meet the coming month in order to discuss the online gambling ban and all of its implications for domestic and foreign online casinos.

But there is a slight confusion in this situation. The fact is that last year the EU and the US settled preliminarily the entire internet casino gambling issue via the World Trade Organization. But the Remote Gaming Association has put pressure on the European Commission to investigate further the issue in the name of many online gambling companies which were ruined by the questionable online gambling ban.

In fact European internet casinos don’t benefit financially from the settlement with the USA that seems a little bit silly as the online gambling companies were harmed in the whole process. Therefore, the European Commission has started to investigate the legitimacy of the UIGEA, and also the right of the DOJ to prosecute online gambling sites for pre-UIGEA gambling activities.

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