YOU CAN BET--BUT DON'T CALL IT GAMBLING.

business, MoneyGaming.com, offers high-stakes betting and jackpots to players competing in a variety of online games. Just don't call it gambling. Launched last month, Britain's MoneyGaming is one of a growing number of sites offering so-called games of skill such as chess, backgammon, and eight-ball pool as a legal alternative to online gambling. The general rule under U.S. common law is that contests where the element of skill predominates over chance are considered legal gaming. Those involving more luck than skill, including poker, are classified as gambling.However, unlike other skill-game sites offering cash prizes, such as WorldWinner and Pogo, the look of the MoneyGaming site suggests the online equivalent of an upscale casino. Players deposit up to $1,000 and can win as much as $2,000 in multiplayer games. In games like solitaire, they compete for shares of jackpots as high as $5,000. “It appeals to the online gambler and to people who have never gambled online,” explains MoneyGaming CEO Liad Shababo. MoneyGaming has about 200,000 registered participants, he says.

While skill-based games may not violate U.S. law, several states have laws that ban the practice or are unclear enough to warrant caution, says Joseph Kelly, a business law professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and co-editor-in-chief of Gaming Law Review. (MoneyGaming blocks access in eight states.) And a wild card awaits MoneyGaming back home. A new British law may require the company to obtain a license. Shababo expresses confidence that such a possibility would prove “no hindrance whatsoever.”

YOU CAN BET--BUT DON'T CALL IT GAMBLING.

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