Full Tilt Poker, a gambling website, is in major trouble for allegedly stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from its players. Felix Salmon blames anti-online gambling laws:
If poker sites were legal and regulated, we could trust the regulator — an arm of the US government — to protect gamblers’ funds. Casinos are strictly regulated; online poker sites should be as well. Instead, they became international fugitives, going to great lengths to make it possible for US gamblers to skirt regulations and use their sites.
Balko nods:
What is abundantly clear is that the federal government’s paternalistic efforts to “protect” online poker players from losing money to offshore gaming sites . . . was a colossal failure.
Screenshot from Full Tilt Poker's website.
The Dish 