While the U.S. government seems determined to maintain its policy that Internet gambling is illegal, Britain, hoping to profit too from the billions being made in the online gambling industry, are heading exactly in the opposite direction and plan to make online gambling legal.

This is sure to anger the U.S., which maintains that online casino businesses are ripe for money laundering schemes. The British have countered this argument by pointing out that that is exactly why the industry needs to be legalized. Legalization would allow for regulation and control of the industry and reduce its appeal to criminal organizations.

The U.S. is not the only country that might have a problem with Britain’s position on online gambling, though, as other European countries are opposed to the legalization of online gambling as well. In some countries in Europe, the casinos are state managed which means that the government has a lot at stake financially in the domestic casinos. If Internet gambling becomes legal, money that might otherwise be spent at domestic, land-based casinos will be diverted to online casinos.

Legal or not, however, it doesn’t make much of a difference, as millions of Europeans and Americans have already taken to online gambling. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 20 million Americans place wagers over the Internet on anything from sports books, to poker, to bingo.