Remember the story back in July of the online gambling sportsbook BetOnSports CEO being detained by the US government and then fired? There has been some closure for the company, but not for the former CEO who still faces 22 counts of fraud and racketeering charges in a trial expected early next year. What deal did the feds cut BetOnSports? Basically, they pointed to the borders and said, “keep out.”

BetOnSports must also take out an advertisement in a major newspaper telling customers that Internet gambling is illegal in the United States and the company will no longer take their bets. It must post similar messages on its Web sites. The settlement isn’t likely to have a huge effect on the Internet gambling industry, said Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier College of Law and an expert on Internet gambling.

Interesting how this professor and so called expert thinks this won’t have a “huge effect on internet gambling industry” when some are saying over 50% of online gambling activity occurs with bettors in the US is beyond me. When Bush signed off on adding anti-online gambling laws to a terrorist bill, this pretty much sealed the fate of online gambling sites doing business here — at least in the current climate. Add to that the fact that in some states like this one (Washington) they’ve made it a class C felony and you end up with a bunch of political muscle thrown at something this writer chalks up to personal choice. This is supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of the protected by the big, bad offshore online casinos.

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of online gambling. Watch what happens in Nevada very closely, because it’s likely to break there first. In fact, bookmark this post and come back in a few years. I think we’ll be looking at some sort of major change. I’m no fortune teller, but this attack on online gambling doesn’t make much sense when the government could regulate and tax and use that money to help our country get out of the financial hole we continue to dig. Somebody has to start thinking about paying the bill for the war on Iraq.

This also doesn’t help people like my friend from Sweden, Forser, who unfortunately lost his job working as a programmer for an online poker site. I don’t see what terrorists and online gambling have in common. Anybody care to connect the dots?

• Detained BetOnSports CEO fired
• Barney Frank proposes bill to legalize and regulate internet gambling
• Bush signs anti-gambling legislation
• Google, Yahoo and Microsoft ante up $31.5 million in fines for promoting online gambling
• 60 Minutes special focuses on internet gambling
• Washington State seeks to expand tribal gaming