When you’re looking for a place to play poker, you’ve probably heard about online gambling. While it may be fun, gambling online can have its downsides. Antigua and Barbuda filed a lawsuit in 2004 against the United States because they said that online gambling was destroying their economy and thousands of jobs. The World Trade Organization ruled in their favor in 2004 and ruled that U.S. laws on online gambling violate international trade agreements.
While online gambling is largely legal in other countries, it is illegal in India. Although it was already legal in the 1980s, changing times have changed gambling laws. Despite the fact that most people prefer gambling online, India has yet to pass legislation legalizing it. The judiciary must make some kind of bridge between changing society and the existing laws. This case demonstrates the importance of a bridging of the gap between these laws and the needs of people everywhere.
The prevalence of internet gambling is relatively low in most countries, but is rising quickly in some regulated sites. The prevalence of online gambling climbed from one percent in 1999 to eight percent in 2011, in Australia. According to a recent survey in the UK, 16 percent of survey respondents reported engaging in at least one form of online gambling in the last four weeks. But the research is not entirely clear, and more work needs to be done to determine whether online gambling is truly beneficial to consumers.