The US Government, along with many individual states and many governments outside of the United States, are doing their best to stop, control, or regulate Internet gambling. The US is taking the ultimatum method and making all online gambling illegal, resorting to the Federal Wire Wager Act (18 U.S.C. § 1084 (1994), which says:
Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
The Interactive Gaming Council monitors gambling laws and resistance efforts around the world, and they are also beginning to be concerned about the threat to the online gaming industry as laws spread around the globe, though online gambling is legal in Dominion Republic, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, South Africa, Antigua, and other countries. According to US law, it is illegal for US citizens to gamble online with a US based gambling company, and illegal for gambling operators in such countries to accept wagers from people residing within in the United States. However, many reports claim that more than 60% of all online gambling is done by US residents.
Whatever the reality is within the Internet gaming industry, the fact is that the US and individual states are working overtime to shut down online gambling. My question is this: If gambling online is illegal, does the same law cover gambling comment spam?
I’m sick of constantly being comment-spammed by online bingo, casinos, black jack, poker, and other gambling spammers. Fight Casino Spam, a grass roots effort to put an end to casino comment spam, is one of only a few groups I found fighting to put an end to gambling and casino comment spam.
They ask that you send casino spam emails to their specific email address so they can build a profile of “gambling websites which condone spam”, creating a blacklist used to help comment spam fighters. Their Fight Casino Spam blog will bring you up-to-date on issues related to fighting casino comment spam, including how they are doing with their fight and blacklisting project.
Akismet, Spam Karma WordPress Plugin, and Bad Behavior WordPress Plugin do a very good job fighting off casino and gambling comment spam, but occasionally one slips through. It’s still annoying.
Do you know if the legal action to put a stop or regulate online gambling will also put an end to casino and gambling comment spammers? Have you heard of any such action? I’d like to know so we can all support their cause. I know there is a lot of action starting to happen to penalize and imprison many comment spammers, but is anything being done to target casino and gambling comment spam?
If people want to gamble online or otherwise, I think that’s up to them. People will gamble whether or not the gambling casinos clog up bandwidth around the world with their comment spam. So why bother? But I’d love to see an end to the annoyance of gambling comment spam. Wouldn’t you?
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network
Lorelle on WordPress 
9 Comments
Oh, yes. The only Spam I like comes from a can. 🙂
I receive a lot of Gambling comment spam every day. Though Akismet manages to catch most of them, some still make their way through 😦
This is so annoying. When will this stop?
Gambling spam sucks, I get pharmaceutical spam for some reason and some weird comments in sequence that are inappropriate. They look like they are written from the same IP adress, with different names, I guess its some kind of bot.
Spam can’t be stopped. I receive approx. 250 spams a day!
Comment spam can be stopped, but it starts with stopping the business of comment spamming. Comment spam on your blogs can be filtered out and prevented from making a public appearance very easily. Use Akismet. It’s free and works with all WordPress and most other blogging, wiki, and forum services. See I’m Winning the Battle Against Comment Spam.
I don’t really think that the online gambling sites are the only ones that are spamming. However, it is true that they spam more. Why that is? It’s simple. Online gambling industry and porn industry are not really getting a lot of “Google love”, if I might say so. So, in order for them to get their online profits, they need to spam, because everyone else is doing so. I am not trying to find an excuse for anyone, but I want you to see that this is a simple cause-effect situation.
ROTFLMAO! 😀 Cause and effect?
I have grown up and in and around the gaming and gambling industry. Trust me. The casino and online gambling sties need no promotional help, and definitely no comment or email spamming help. This multi-billion dollar international industry gets business just by existing. Society supports them with little influence on marketing or advertising. The fact that they lower their industry to the lowest denominator redundantly shows their poor taste and judgment not business sense.
Google’s lack of “appreciation” for their smarmy techniques only proves my point. They don’t have to compete with other comment spammers and splogs to sell their products and services. The fact that the gambling industry feels that they have to spam more only reinforces my point and Google’s actions.
Do you know your gambling history? It used to be a proud industry and activity. It had honor. It had integrity. Sure, there were always scams, but it was considered the highest form of personal theft and entertainment, an interesting combination.
Where has the pride and integrity gone?
A correction: Online gambling in nz is illegal. I have ever recieved gambling spam.
@ Hannah:
Then you are lucky. In and around your blog comment were Internet gambling ads caught as spam. 😀
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[…] What does this have to do with blogs and blogging? Recently, I wrote “Illegal Internet Gambling and Gambling Comment Spam”, about how blogs are used to promote illegal gambling and casinos through comment spam and advertising. I also mentioned Fight Casino Spam, a grass roots effort to put an end to gambling and casino comment spam. […]
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