Not surprisingly, the countries in which gambling is illegal have the most egregious gambling activity. Obviously, if the government is going to ignore the potential millions in gambling revenues, organized crime and gangs are not. In fact, illegal gambling businesses are savvy when it comes to measuring the extent to which a society will invest itself in gambling.

China

Some of the biggest problems in the realm of illegal gambling lie in countries like Mexico and China. In China, the government prohibits any form of gambling which includes pari mutual betting or lotteries. The Chinese media is often rife with the most current stories of illegal casino raids and the controversy over the infiltration of online gaming into their otherwise closed culture. In fact, the Chinese government would like nothing more than to be able to actually shut down the foreign businesses giving them gambling grief.

Mexico

Mexico, while it permits pari mutual horse racing, dog racing and Jai Alai, puts the remainder of the typical gambling world off limits. The government has bandied about the issue of legalizing commercial casino gambling for a number of years now and for ambiguous reasons the issue continues to fall through the political cracks. Clearly there is a balance of indecision keeping the country from committing. However, what is starkly apparent is the decrepitude of the Mexican economy. Pro-gambling politicians argue that the illegal gambling revenues currently being siphoned off the generally poor citizens might be captured closer to home if there were legal commercial casinos in the country.

The Legality of Online Gambling

Not only has the Chinese government nipped at the hand of online gambling, but so has the United States. Currently, the United States’ stance on online gambling is that the practice is illegal. However, when the government tried to squash the business of a couple of Antigua-based gambling outfits a few years ago, the World Trade Organization stepped in and rebuked the United States’ attempts to regulate foreign trade that clearly does not fall under their jurisdiction.

The legality of online gambling is an entangled web of as-yet unregulated communications lines and a soupy mess of digital ones and zeros.