He said the Web site was up and running selling tickets and doing well before the concerns expressed by the attorney general's office. I don't think it was their intention to shut us down because of the huge benefits that would have accrued to the state and its charitable organizations. I think they were looking at it, they felt, in their opinion, we had strayed too close to the line. In our discussions, it wasn't directed against our company personally. You have to have a statutory provision for it.
Most states are silent on the issue because the Internet is so new.
Difficult to curtail online betting William Eadington, a professor of economics and director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada in Reno, said it's going to be difficult to ban Internet betting and games of chance. And on top of that, you've had for the last 25 years a substantial increase or presence in all forms of gambling, which makes it either arbitrary that you're going after the Internet or somewhat hypocritical that governments are authorizing lotteries and other forms of gambling for their own benefit. Whether Internet-related betting is legal remains unclear in most states, because state laws do not prohibit or allow the practice. Some court decisions have ruled against Internet gaming, and Congress is debating legislation that would outlaw cyber-gambling. New York outlaws gambling Just recently, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled that online gambling is illegal within the state's borders.