Legal Online Gambling in U.S. States Hurting Canada
January 16, 2014
With individual states in the U.S. now embracing online gambling,
an interesting side effect is occurring as companies are pulling
out of the Canadian market. One of the top online payment processors,
Skrill, announced that they are pulling out of the Canadian market
with payments stopping on January 2nd. The company announced that
all funds in Skrill Canadian accounts must be paid by January 31st.
The reason that companies like Skrill are pulling out of Canada
and embracing states in the USA is all about legality. Canada has
very murky laws regarding online gambling. Online gambling firms
can’t operate within Canada but offshore providers are allowed
to service Canadian players. In the USA, the laws are clearer because
individual states are now going ahead with online gambling. New
Jersey, Nevada and Delaware are providing online gambling to their
residents. New Jersey has even reached an agreement with Skrill
to be the only payment processor based in the state. Many people
believe that Skrill was given the green light with the condition
that they pull out of Canada.
It used to be that Canada was friendlier to online gambling than
the United States but that looks to be changing with individual
states in the USA getting into the act. Now it could be that online
gambling companies will avoid Canada in favor of the individual
U.S. states.
