But the US federal government says the activity is illegal and corrupting and claims it could never be properly regulated anyway. This contentious issue is explored on Sunday 20th November by Lesley Stahl in the famous television magazine show.

According to some British gambling firms the US government is cutting off its nose to spite its face. The number of gamblers online is increasing year on year and whether or not the US government like it, they cannot stop it. So why not take the tax revenue on offer they say.

Nigel Payne, in charge of UK based Sportingbet, said: “We calculated that were America to have regulated online gambling in 2004, the American states would have earned $1.2 billion in tax”.

He also said that many companies like his own would be happy to pay tax because of the effect it would have in eliminating many of the less reputable gambling sites from the industry.

Payne estimates that 80 per cent of global online gambling business comes from the US, accounting for about $8 billion of the $10 billion annual profits for the industry. And he doesn’t see that stopping any time soon. “Think people are going to stop gambling? Seriously? Do you think the internet is going away?”

For all the federal government’s repeated insistence that online gambling is illegal, that is not preventing adults and children alike from doing it. And while unregulated it is easy for children to gamble on some foreign sites. Indeed this is demonstrated by 60 MINUTES producer Alex Hartman’s son, who uses his dad’s credit card and quickly loses $100. But in an ironic twist the boy was rejected from a site owned by Sportingbet, the very company calling for regulation.