The situation in Europe is not very good at the moment too with the arrests of 2 betandwin execs 2 weeks ago. But the situation in Europe is very different since what is at stake is the state monopolies of gambling. They see a lot of potential in the gambling industry and don’t want to share it with private held companies.
The problem is that European rules say that if there is a company operating in any state, then any other company must be able to do the same on that state. There are some exclusions though but from what has been said, since all state owned gambling is advertised actively trying to encourage gambling, there is no grounds to keep this like it is at the moment. The EU is likely to take some measures very soon and to take the first steps into total liberalisation because of the abuse from the governments across Europe.
Let’s see what happens.
I think that since there is too much demand for gambling, there is nothing that can be done effectivelly to ilegalise it in the long run.