Americans are using Canada to Bypass US Online Gambling Ban

Americans who want to play online poker are doing so through a loophole that employs Canadian based servers. By masking their US based IP addresses, Americans are able to play poker just like before.

Since the ban only affects US citizens, and not Canadians, they take steps to appear as if they are playing from Canada. Under this loophole US players find Canadian residential addresses that contain a common last name and then utilize findnot.com ip redirecting service. Doing so will make it appear to the poker site that it is a Canadian IP trying to access the site and it will not block it, enabling the U.S. citizen to play. Because the ban restricts US gamblers from using credit cards, they’re using third party payment processors to deposit and withdraw funds. It’s illegal for poker sites to accept direct money transfers to and from a U.S. bank account, but they manage to bypass this by using Click2Pay or ePassporte. (see Payment processors for US players)

Americans insist that this new law will not prevent them from gambling and if they find a way, they will. The new law is pushing the online poker community underground which is probably not what lawmakers wanted. The bottom line is that U.S. players believe they DO have freedom of speech and to block them from this privilege just makes them angry.

Also, many Americans liviving near the Canadian border are picking up wireless internet access from Canada, making it look as if they are not playing from the U.S. Physically going to Canada with their laptops and playing from a pub or friend’s home is just another way for Americans to make their point.