ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the online gambling offers many opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs to engage in fraud, theft, extortion and money laundering in and around online gambling sites. The large amounts of e-cash that circuit online gambling operations provide significant rewards for the dishonest. The societal effects of widespread access to online gambling are slowly being explored by scholars. In particular, research has focused upon links between Internet gambling and problem gambling, but to date no research has explored the degree to which Internet gambling, problem gambling and gambling related crime intersect. Opportunities for money laundering, underage gambling, and fraud and theft can also present themselves where player protection and anti-money laundering procedures are compromised. The marked expansion of online gambling poses many challenges for governments seeking to control industry access and gambling transactions. Unlike land-based operations, online gambling organisations undermine the traditional relationship between physical location and effective legal jurisdiction.
