For many people, the US government’s decision to ban online gambling is probably a little confusing. The US is home to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, after all, and these cities are easily two of the biggest gambling centres in the world. So why would the United States be one of only a small handful of countries to ban gambling online? The answer, it appears, is money.

To start at the beginning, the ban was first proposed by Bob Goodlatte, a lawmaker from Virginia. His claim was that online gambling would lead to the corruption of America’s youth. This excuse of potential corruption seems to be somewhat of a US tradition, and it is a claim that has been used to keep Americans from engaging in a variety of activities on a long list including everything from playing at an online casino to listening to certain types of music. It’s an easy claim to make, since it’s basically impossible to either prove or disprove.

If we take a closer look though, we can begin to see more of the real reasons for the ban, or at least hints of the real reasons. Goodlatte’s election campaign was run using more than sixty thousand dollars of money that was donated by the local horse racing industry, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Americans are really being blocked from playing casino games to protect America’s gigantic land-based gambling industry, and America’s young people were probably never really a consideration. There is also the matter of tax revenue. Since most online operators are overseas, it was difficult for any of the money changing hands through online gambling to be taxed, and the US government decided that they would rather have no gambling at all than have gambling they couldn’t make money from.

As we all know, there are many ways for governments to profit off of online casino websites and the online casino gambling industry as a whole: in addition to the UK, there are dozens of examples of countries that have made the decision to legalise and regulate online gaming only to see their gaming industries grow quickly and enjoy incredible succes. In order to make money off of online gambling, governments simply need to accept the fact that players will access their favourite games and casino websites regardless of whether or not doing so is legally permissible.