Just recently a United States Federal has upheld what the U.S. government says is its right to seize revenue that was on it's way to an online gambling outfit in the U.K. where the betting was entirely legal.
This decision may affect the Webmaster in many ways not apparent in the gambling related conviction.
First, the District Court disagreed said there was little doubt that the alleged illegal activity occurred in New Jersey, giving authorities probable-cause grounds to seize the funds in the first place.
The gambling operator took and received funds in New Jersey. The court said this was a integral component of "Bowman's gambling enterprise," the court said.
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"It received funds from bettors throughout the United States and processed those transfers so that the bettors could open accounts and place bets with ASL and other Bowman companies. It sent Bowman an hourly accounting of these funds. This allowed Bowman to monitor betting income and it also allowed bettors to call ASL and Bowman to confirm their deposits and place bets."
Now as an attorney, I look at this and wonder could this be used to attack websites both adult and non adult referring traffic. If you are sending traffic (for compensation) to a website out of the country you could be arrested for their illegal conduct. Now this would directly relate to website that partnered on the profits of gambling sites. Websites that just advertised for the illegal websites is a different issue.
The court also spoke on the issue of Bowman's businesses being legal outside the U.S., the court wrote:
"(Bowman's) essential claim is that the district court had no jurisdiction to apply United States gambling law to a British citizen and British companies operating legal gambling businesses on English soil."
However, the court said, U.S. gambling laws
"reflect the 'strong public policies' of the United States government, and the government is not required to tolerate activity that it defines as illegal merely because it affects someone who may live in a country where the activity is legal."
This part of the courts decision makes it pretty clear.