On Wednesday a U.S. house of Representatives subcommittee approved a bill that would make internet gambling, an estimated 12 billion dollar a year industry illegal.
The new law would be an expansion of existing federal laws to make them cover all the different forms of gambling that take lace in the USA. It would stop the Casinos from being able to accept money from credit cards, checks wire and internet transfers. It would also ban the use of more then 23,000 internet gambling sites.
The price of stocks in several British based gaming companies plummeted when it the announcement that the American bill had progressed to the next step.
The bill was approved by a vote by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on crime and will now go to the full committee for their review.
It is still unclear if the legislation will make it to the floor for votes in the House or the Senate because Congress has a shorter then usual schedule this year due to November Congressional elections.
"Virtual betting parlors have attempted to avoid the application of United States law by locating themselves offshore and out of our jurisdictional reach," said a Virginia Republican who wrote the bill. The offshore companies use Internet sites that are "unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated," he said.
According to U.S. law interstate gambling over phone wires is against the law and other gambling is banned if not regulated by the states.