While it is illegal to provide online sports gambling services, the operators of Betcha.com believed they'd found a way around the law. They were wrong!

When what seemed to be a water tight way around the illegality of providing customers with a way to gamble on sports over the Internet, founder Nicholas Jenkins thought he had cracked a very lucrative nut. By allowing gamblers to place bets they only had to pay for if they won and not if they lost, it seemed like he had found a way around the strict anti gambling laws on online sports websites at both federal and state level.

Unfortunately, the Washington State's Supreme Court didn't see it that way and issued a ruling which could have the site closed down permanently. The ruling took into account the website's opt out clause allowing bettors to decline paying for losing bets, but the justices said that this does not have any bearing on the online gambling laws as they stand. It was because Betcha.com charged their customers fees which they took for the processing of bets as well as a percentage proportion of the action that still made the website's activities illegal.

Justice Tom Chambers wrote that by the statutory definition applied to bookmaking, whether users of Betcha.com were engaged in any form of gambling activity or not is immaterial. Jenkins, naturally thought that the ruling was unfair and wondered if the case was even taken seriously by the justices.

The method that Betcha.com believed would keep them on the right side of the gambling laws entailed gamblers being allowed to place bets on a variety of sporting or other entertainment events of up to $1,000. The customer placed the money into a holding account to prove the bettor was able to cover the bet. At the completion of the event, the bettor was then given 72 hours in which to make the decision to pay for the bet. It works on a rating scheme, so that if the gambler decided they would not pay the wager, it would negatively affect their rating, resulting in other gamblers avoiding taking a bet with that gambler.

The court ruling outlined the way in which Betcha.com was breaking the laws on online gambling, but so far there have been no charges filed against any of the website's organizers or owners. In the United States, sports betting is unlawful everywhere except in the states of Delaware and Nevada.