In the last few years, the rise of legal online gambling has been incredible. Seeing more people be able to bet than ever before has been tremendously rewarding. Specifically, it’s been rewarding for bettors, businesses, municipalities, and taxpayers. Unfortunately, illegal gambling hasn’t entirely gone away.
For example, the “American Gaming Association” found, in a recent article entitled “Sizing the Illegal and Unregulated Gaming Market In the U.S.,” that there’s still so much money out there in illegal gambling. They estimate that “Americans bet more than $510.9 billion a year with illegal and unregulated operators.”
Why Illegal Gambling Isn’t for Everybody
Now, it’s entirely possible that you read and thought: “Well, OK. That seems risky. But it’s their money, it’s a free country, what’s the problem?” Well, one of the main problems is (as the article goes on to say) “this costs the legal (sports gambling) industry $44.2 billion in gaming revenue and state governments $13.3 billion in lost tax revenue.”
That latter is a real problem. That money could make a real difference. If the world were like it was a few years ago, this might be more understandable. When illegal gambling sites were, quite literally, the only game in town, then sure, it made sense to frequent them. But, it sure doesn’t now. Why not? Well, for many reasons, but not the least among them is risk.
Specifically, the risk of being cheated. Many don’t realize this, but, as the American Gaming Association points out, “the legal gaming industry is among the most highly-regulated industries in America.” It may not seem that way, but it’s true. Online gaming sites have to comply with so many rules and laws that illegal sites don’t have to.
Many of those laws deal with protection, specifically the protection of bettors. When you visit an illegal site, you risk something truly bad happening. It’s always worth gaming and betting with the pros.
