Britain’s culture secretary on Friday compared the U.S. crackdown on online gambling to the failed alcohol ban of the Prohibition as she prepared to host an international summit on Internet gambling next week, the Associated Press reports.
Tessa Jowell warned that the U.S. ban on Internet gambling would make unregulated offshore sites the “modern equivalent of speakeasies,” illegal bars that opened in 1920s America when alcohol was banned.
U.S. Congress caught the gambling industry by surprise earlier this month when it added to an unrelated bill a provision that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to settle payments for online gambling sites. President Bush signed the law Oct. 14.
