Legal Online Gambling in U.S. States Hurting Canada

With individual states in the U.S. now embracing online gambling, an interesting side effect is occurring as companies are pulling out of the Canadian market. One of the top online payment processors, Skrill, announced that they are pulling out of the Canadian market with payments stopping on January 2nd. The company announced that all funds in Skrill Canadian accounts must be paid by January 31st.

The reason that companies like Skrill are pulling out of Canada and embracing states in the USA is all about legality. Canada has very murky laws regarding online gambling. Online gambling firms can’t operate within Canada but offshore providers are allowed to service Canadian players. In the USA, the laws are clearer because individual states are now going ahead with online gambling. New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware are providing online gambling to their residents. New Jersey has even reached an agreement with Skrill to be the only payment processor based in the state. Many people believe that Skrill was given the green light with the condition that they pull out of Canada.

It used to be that Canada was friendlier to online gambling than the United States but that looks to be changing with individual states in the USA getting into the act. Now it could be that online gambling companies will avoid Canada in favor of the individual U.S. states.