U.K. Based GalaCoral Blocks U.S. Citizens From Betting

GalaCoral, a United Kingdom based betting and gaming group, announced on Friday that it is blocking citizens from the United States from placing bets on their websites. A spokesman for the gaming group said that the company has made that move following the uncertainty over the current United States legal situation.

GalaCoral's websites have seen a small percentage of U.S. citizens playing poker and bingo games in it eventhough GalaCoral has never taken bets for U.S. sporting events and does not even advertise in the United States.

This decision by GalaCoral capped a very tense week for followers and watchers of the whole online gaming industry mainly because of the indictment of David Carruthers, who is the CEO of BETonSPORTS, on charges of racketeering and tax evasion against him. David Carruthers waived his right to a detention hearing in a United States federal court this friday and will remain in the custody of the U.S. authorities.

Because of the incident shares in industry leaders 888 and Sporting Bet ended the trading session that day on a slump with a 6.1 and 2.1 percent drop in their respective shares with investors growing concerned about the on-going crackdown by authorities on online gambling in the U.S.

The shares in PartyGaming fortunately, have managed to stay afloat and end the trading day on a positive note with an 11% percent increase at 96-3/4 pence after it proved wrong some forecasts by the analysts in the market by posting a modest 49% percent rise in the second quarter revenues.

Sportingbets, which makes majority of its revenues in the United States, has lost around half their original price over the past week.