Is it legal to bet on sports online?

While sports betting in the United States has remained legal in bricks and mortar casinos in Nevada (and commencing in September, 2009 in Delaware), betting with a US-based bookmaker is illegal. However, to our knowledge, no online sports bettor has ever been prosecuted in the country as federal law speaks mainly to bookmaking and those in the business of betting, not the casual player.Some states (such as Washington, Indiana, Illinois, Montana) have language expressly forbidding online betting and Washington even made betting $5 in a poker room the felony equivalent of possessing child pornography in its criminal code. What’s worse – the guy downloading and selling kiddy porn or the guy playing $2 Texas Holdem against his buddies?Most online sportsbooks are headquartered in nations where sports betting is legal and licensed and regulated and accepted.Of note, the state of New Jersey commenced a lawsuit in 2009 seeking to overturn a federal ban on sports betting, stating it wants to offer the service to bettors at its casinos. And Betfair.com, the world’s largest sports betting exchange, recently purchased horse racing site TVG.com as its foray into the US market. It anticipates eventual relaxing of gaming law and introduction of legal, regulated online sports betting.So the very long answer to a very short question is this: check in your own jurisdiction because rules vary state by state and country by country. It is estimated that $10 billion is wagered online in the country each year. And by the time you finished reading this answer, the law probably changed in some jurisdiction.