Offshores sports betting site, legal or illegal?

Question

If I create a p2p sports betting website that only allows citizens of the U.K. and Canada to sign up would this be legal. I live in the U.S. where online betting is illegal but because it doesnt offer to u.s. citizens it would be legal, right?

One other question; since its offshores can I allow U.S. citizens to join?

Answer 1

I think you have it backwards. You can bet if you live in the USA. The government does not care if you bet your money to an overseas company. It is not legal to operate an online casino or betting operation in the USA. The only exception may be Nevada but I am not sure about that.

Answer 2

No. It would be illegal to run such a site from within the United States. If you want to stay in NA and do this you'd have to establish the site on the Kahnawake reserve.

With respect to accepting members from the US that is at the site's discretion. All sites use to accept US players until UIGEA passed. While UIGEA did nothing to affect the legality of offshore betting it did make payment processing illegal and thus many operators choose to pull out of the US market.

This has to be the 3rd or 4th person asking about this in the last few days. Regardless of the legalities it is near impossible for someone new to break into the market which is already oversaturated with established sites. You'd need to offer something very unique to attract new members now and spend a lot of money establishing trust.