Virginia Wants To Ban Internet Gambling Cafes

A loophole that has allowed internet gambling cafes to grow is now just one signature away from closing. The U.S. State of Virginia wants to stop internet gambling cafes to grow. Governor McDonnell's signature on the bipartisan would make gambling laws more powerful and would cause a total ban to internet gambling cafes.


The state of Virginia has very strict gambling laws. One of their gambling laws is if any person while gambling cheats or by fraudulent means wins or acquires for himself or another money or any other valuable thing, he shall be fined not less than five nor more than ten times the value of such winnings. There are only several gambling games that are allowed to play in Virginia such as Charitable gambling, racetracks and other pari-mutuel gambling and the lottery are legal. All this kinds of gambling games are legal, but casino games are banned, including tribal casinos.


And because the state of Virginia has banned all casino games, it was understood that such a ban included online casino gaming or online gambling. However, there are still internet gambling businesses such as internet sweepstakes cafes that have found a loophole and started to create growing internet businesses.

The said businesses offer a number of technology-related services, like copying and faxing, but the main purpose of this kinds of businesses is selling time on the computer to use the internet. The customers will receive a sweepstakes points for the time they buy on the internet and the cafes will be the one to give the customers the sweepstakes points.

Or players have also the chance to earn money by gaining points when playing the casino games. The customer will only pay for the time on the computer and not to the wager on the games. A loophole in the law said that the computer terminals were not gambling machines and the gambling cafes were not gambling businesses.


Clay Athey made a press release stating that “the Virginia General Assembly stood up today for Virginia values and left in Las Vegas what belongs in Las Vegas”. When the time comes that the bill becomes law, the said businesses would still be able to sell time on the internet as long as the time is not used in casino games or other forms of gambling.