US Attempts to Eliminate Unlicensed Online Gambling Unlike Canada

The United States has been aggressively pursuing unlicensed online gambling operators, whereas the Canadian authorities have so far not done anything to address the issue.

Offshore gambling businesses are not licensed by any authority in the United States or Canada. They have offered their services online to customers in these countries. As these providers are unregulated, customers and authorities cannot be sure if they are of good character, their games are fair or whether the business is also being used for criminal enterprises, such as money laundering.

Apart from this, these foreign companies make hundreds of millions of dollars out of the US and Canadian dollars, tax free.

In 2025, US authorities arrested the Chief Executive of Betonsports, David Carruthers for taking bets from US citizens. He spent three years under house arrest before being sentenced to 33 months in jail.
In the same year, they charged Anurag Dikshit from PartyGaming PLC for taking bets from US residents. Mr Dikshit settled the affair in May 2025 by agreeing to pay a $300 million fine.

The following year, US authorities charged NETeller, an online payment processing firm and its two Canadian cofounders with conspiring to promote illegal gambling. They consented to pay a $100 million fine.

The US authorities have pursued other companies and people whom they allege have illegally accepted bets from US residents. The US Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2025. This law has made it a criminal act to accept bets or wagers online or to process these bets or wagers.

Now that the US government has checked this outlaw industry, it can now legalise, regulate and tax it. The former chairman of the US House of Representatives, Barney Frank has introduced a bill to do this.