Is Facebook Texas Hold’em in breach of US Gambling Laws?

As the worlds largest social networking site, Facebook is open to being abused for illegal gambling activity.

The Texas Hold’em application is one of Facebook’s most popular applications and so it was only a matter of time before someone found a way to profit from the millions of people who have signned up for the application. Whilst the application itself does not require any payment some companies have set up a systems where player who have a large amount of chips can sell them to other players. this payment is in breach of US gambling laws.

It is an operation that Facebook has quickly detected, and the site, along with AlertPay, are putting a stop to it.The operations involve players gaining chips for the Facebook poker application, and then selling the chips to other people who want to play the game. The online payment system AlertPay has agreed to terms with Facebook to terminate operations where poker chips are being sold.
“Facebook does not permit online gambling on its platform and some sellers attempted to convert the Texas Hold’em Poker application into monetized online gambling,” said a statement on the official blog of AlertPay.

According to the statement, AlertPay was particularly concerned with the possibility that these operations could have been violating US online gambling laws.
The laws are vague, but unregulated Internet gambling is not permitted.

“Site offering for sale virtual poker chips for use with Texas Hold’em Poker are in violation of AlertPay’s User Agreement and in potential violation of state and United States Federal laws prohibiting unlicensed and/or gambling,” read the statement, “as well as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 20o6.”

However some still question whether the Facebook Texas Hold’em application is ethical as there is no age restriction as with legal  online poker and casino sites. Is the free access to competetive poker a good way for players to learn the ups and down of the game or a potential threat to impressionable young teens resulting in an increase in gambling addicts hence creating bad publicity for a growing industry.