Champion against online casinos, Eliot Spitzer resigned from office as Governor of New York.  He had little choice after being publicly shamed for his involvement in a prostitution ring currently being investigated in New Jersey.

Ironically, as the Manhattan district attorney Spitzer gained notoriety in New York for fighting organized crime rings like the one he has been accused of soliciting. 

While working as the attorney general, Spitzer eventually turned much of his energy toward stopping online casinos.  In 2002, Spitzer threatened to prosecute any bank that chose to process payment transaction to or from online casinos.

Citibank, the leading issuer of credit cards in the United States even made an agreement with the attorney general’s office to cease processing transactions with online casinos and all other forms of Internet gambling businesses.

“Americans now waste $4 billion a year on this pernicious form of gambling,” Spitzer once said of online casinos. “With this agreement, we will cut off an unlimited line of credit that was a jackpot for illegal offshore casinos.”

Before Spitzer, many law enforcement actions have been aimed against online casinos and online gambling.  He was the first to go after the financial entities so vital to their operations.

Spitzer acknowledge that it is incredibly difficult to prosecute online casinos.  Therefore, he reasoned, banks and credit card companies must do everything in their legal power to avoid  involvement in these “illegal and harmful transactions.”