New bill aims to overturn online gambling ban in USA
Two US congressmen have introduced a bill to stop the government from enforcing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the 2006 ruling that effectively banned online gambling and poker across the States.
Since the UIGEA was sneakily passed, tacked on to the end of an entirely unrelated bill about port security, internet gambling dropped significantly, and operators around the world suffered heavy losses, since Americans make up the majority of online gamblers.
Of course, players and online casinos have found ways round the law, using foreign accounts and third party e-wallets to bypass the financial barriers.
Democrat Barney Frank and Republican Ron Paul introduced the anti-UIGEA bill on 10th April, supported by the American Banking Association. The last year has shown that the banks do not have the capacity to effectively block all transactions to gambling sites, and many critics have said that this responsibility should not fall on the financial sector. Add to this the fact that the term ‘illegal internet gambling’ has not been clearly defined in the UIGEA, and you have a recipe for confusion.
Many American do not even know that it is illegal to play poker or gamble online, and continue to do so with foreign sites that allow access to US players.
Frank and Paul argue for implementing a more workable law, with the goal that the internet gambling industry should be legalized, licensed and taxed so that gamblers can enjoy this age-old pastime and the government can reap its rewards.
Things move slowly in Congress, but this latest bill provides a ray of hope to the hundreds of thousands making a living in the online gambling world that things may be about to change.
