Anyone who took a close look at UIGEA, the act which banned online gambling in the US, would see that it has turned into a barely enforceable nightmare which has primarily succeeded only in annoying Americans.

 

 

This didn’t stop the government of Gauteng, South Africa from announcing their intention to do the exact same thing though. This heavy-handed measure made illegal almost everything even loosely connected to online gambling. Like most of these type of debates, actual concern for citizens has very little to do with the laws. This particular set of restrictions came as a result of the online casino Piggs Peak challenging the Gauteng government’s jurisdiction over them. Now, online casinos totally unrelated to this dispute, like JackpotCity Casino, are being banned and Gauteng’s citizens punished for the actions of a company in another country. If you think this sounds unfair, you aren’t alone. Bans like this usually don’t work, although not many countries have really tried. This means that Gauteng lacks a real, workable model for implementing the ban, and has chosen to use the US’s deeply flawed model, UIGEA. This legislation has not worked particularly well for the US, and even supporters of the ban are now having to admit that UIGEA is too vague and too difficult to enforce. Gauteng clearly thinks they can do better, but that remains to be seen.