Leader: Online gambling on a losing streak

The ball landing on zero on the roulette wheel when you've bet your last chip. That dead cert falling at the first, with all your wages in its nosebag. Your pocket aces getting cracked while a pair of twos scoops the pot.

Roll up all that bad luck into one big ball of misery and you might get just a tiny inkling of how the execs running online gambling businesses feel today.

In a shock move the US has passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act which aims to crack down on online gambling companies by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

Already gambling companies are scrambling to work out how they can suspend their US operations should the act become law - which is likely to happen in a couple of weeks.

Some poker fans in the US are already talking about a new era of prohibition similar to the 1930s, with the Poker Players Alliance claiming the law will "push poker underground, essentially creating online speakeasies".

In some ways the gambling industry shouldn't be surprised - online gambling has been barely tolerated by the US for a number of years, with senate majority leader Bill Frist going so far as to describe it as a "shadow industry".

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There's a warning here for all businesses too. Just because technology has made something possible, don't think governments will necessarily allow it.

Perhaps the gambling companies felt that sooner or later the US would have to bow to the pressure of the markets.

But today that looks like a gamble they may have lost.