As far as this industry goes, the US government has cheated taxpayers out of huge amounts of money.
The taxes collected from the PPC’s on gambling ads, the money spent by PPCs in the states they made from gambling ads, and a bunch of affiliates went out of business. I don’t know about all of you, but my income has taken a dip since this happened. Less taxes from me and others like me also.
If they were to regulate and licence casinos they could collect all kinds of money from online casinos. They may even tax players for playing – some countries have a luxury tax for that. Not to mention that players would be a lot safer playing at regulated casinos and casinos would likely be very happy to pay through the nose to be regulated by the US.
All that is money the people of the US did not get.