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 US based IP addresses, Americans are able to play poker just like before. Because the ban only affects US citizens, and not Canadians, they're able to make it 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 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 withdrawal funds.

Because it's illegal for poker sites to accept direct money transfers to and from a U.S. bank account, they're able to bypass this by using Click2Pay or ePassporte. Americans insist that this new law will not prevent them from gambling and if they want to find a way, they will. The new law just pretty much pushed the online poker community underground which is not what lawmakers wanted, but U.S. gamblers are forced to do. 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 angrier.

Many Americans live right near the Canadian border as well and are picking up wireless access from Canada, making it look as if they are not playing from the U.S. By 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.