If you are a resident of the USA and want to bet on cricket through bookmaking websites, then, first of all, you should familiarize yourself with the gambling laws in your state. It is right that gambling is illegal in the USA, but as far as online cricket betting is concerned, you can get away using a number of online bookmakers. That is why you are here, right? Well, you are in the right place. We will tell you the best sites for online cricket betting and all the other required information to try your luck.
Gambling laws in the US
The legal laws for online gambling in the US are complex (Wikipedia article “Gambling in the US”). Legal penalties differ depending on the offense of offering online betting, advertising online bets, payment transfers and actually placing a bet online. Three sets of laws are responsible to govern online gambling.
The Wire Wager Act – 1961
The law prohibits placing of bets on sports events through electronic communication or transfer of any information electronically that facilitates online gambling. WWA is widely applied to online gambling and is capable of prosecuting bookmakers in the USA. However, the law is yet to catch any casual online bettor.
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) – 2006
This law makes illegal to accept or transfer funds through electronic means, check or credit card for the purpose of online gambling. It never mentions anything about placing bets, but as it opposes related payment transfer, several US bookmakers were forced to withdraw their betting facilities from the US. Apart from that, several banking services like Neteller stopped facilitating payment transfers to gambling websites. Banks followed the same route as well.
Individual state laws
Apart from the two acts mentioned above, there are few states with specific laws against online gambling. Such states include Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Despite the laws, there have been no prosecution reports of individuals involved in online cricket betting.
However, if you are using a legal betting site, there are chances that you will not face any trouble. Again, we are not the lawyers, so before making an account on the online cricket betting site or transfer any amount to it, please check with one of your legal advisors.
How you can bet online in the USA?
With all these laws in place for gambling, you must be wondering how players are already involved in cricket betting online. If we talk in simple language, most of the laws are for companies, not users. Yes, there are states like Nevada, New Jersey and California where users are at fault to transfer the money to the gambling agency. But, these states are only a few exceptions as most of the time the law only governs the companies. And this is what the cache is as most of the gambling units are located in the UK, Asia, and Costa Rica – places where the US has no jurisdiction. This is the reason they cannot do much harm to those companies.
The websites that we mentioned above are accepting US players. Why they are doing it? Because they have working payment options for US players as well. If you will check none of the websites has a domain name ending with.com. They have different domains like .au or.lv. Why is that? Because the US apparently has jurisdiction over .com domain names and this is how they get hold of FullTilt, PokerStars and many more in April 2011.
Depositing and withdrawing funds in the US
The WWA and UIGEA have limited the banking options for online cricket betting in the USA. Still, there are several payment options that are accepted by the bookmakers. Most popular depositing and withdrawal method is credit card as most of the online cricket betting sites accept Visa, American Express and MasterCard. If the credit card is rejected online, you can call the support team of the betting website and they will manually charge the credit card for the given amount.
Unfortunately, if you are unable to use the credit card over the phone as well, then you can try e-wallets like MyPayLinq or MoneyLineWallet and prepaid cards offered by Digital Pin. Other options include instant e-check deposits and money transfers from MoneyGram or Western Union.
Credit cards and e-wallets are the most preferred way for online cricket betting as both the deposits and withdrawal is quick with them. However, if you face any trouble or rejection while using these two, you can try other methods.
Conclusion
As we read above, cricket betting online is complicated in the US as there are laws that can trouble you in real time. Even on the mentioned websites, you will find limited cricket betting options. However, we already told you the way to crack the deal.
In the US there is always a possibility that you may lose the deposited amount on the betting website. Means, they will take the money and run, you are not getting payment or winning prizes. Play with less money that you can afford to lose so that even if any payment seizes happens or the company shut down, you do not have to face big financial trouble.
Stewart Dixon is a professional online sports bettor and trader with over 10 years of experience in the industry. He worked numerous online bookmaker including Bet365, Betway, and William Hill. With this long experience, now he has decided to share his experience with other betting aspirants like you. Know more at about us page.