The regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) were finalized and will go into effect on January 19, 2009. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve issued rules that bar financial companies from processing payments connected to most gambling Web sites, effectively making Internet gambling illegal.The rules, issued Wednesday, give companies until Dec. 1, 2009, to comply with a ban that covers credit-card transactions, electronic transfers and checks related to Internet gambling.
At the forefront of the fight for legalized and regulated internet gambling, and more specifically online poker, is the Poker Players Alliance (PPA).
On Wednesday, the PPA issued a statement on its website authored by Chairman Alfonse D’Amato: “Despite the efforts of the poker community, the opposition of the banks, and the recent news exposing inappropriate influence by the White House, today the current administration finalized the UIGEA regulations… I have not lost my drive to correct this injustice and I call on you to join me and the million strong PPA to help continue our fight.”
The final regulations reveal the complications behind the law as a whole: “The Act’s definition of unlawful internet gambling relies on underlying Federal and State laws. The States have taken different approaches to the regulation of gambling… Accordingly, the underlying patchwork legal framework does not lend itself to a single regulatory definition of unlawful internet gambling.” The rules rely on the relationships between banks and merchants to determine whether a company is operating an illegal gambling business. Click here to read the UIGEA regulations.
The Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), which itself is in the middle of a lawsuit to declare the UIGEA unconstitutional, stated on its website, “Congress declined to end all ambiguity by refusing to define ‘unlawful Internet gambling.’ Now banks and credit card companies are being told they have to police these transactions, that they have to guess correctly as to which are and which are not illegal, and - should they guess wrong - assume all of the liability in the form of sanctions. How can they possibly operate fairly under that kind of threat?”
Soon, the 111th Congress will gather in Washington, D.C., to begin its work, and that means that all of the bills that were introduced to the 110th Congress will have to be reintroduced all over again.
Several bills that were introduced that, if passed, would have changed the landscape of Internet poker in the United States, also expire with the 110th Congress in a few weeks.
John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, says that all of the proposed bills concerning poker and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that were introduced in 2007 and 2008 will be reintroduced when the next Congress convenes.
The PPA is working with the lawmakers who introduced the bills in the first place to tweak and change the bills so that they might find passage more easily. In fact, Pappas is meeting with lawmakers next week to talk about strategy.
Each of the 7,000-plus bills that were introduced during the 110th Congress but never saw a final roll call will have to be reintroduced. Lobbyists, like the PPA, from all corners of industry and interests are now working with politicians to rewrite the bills that fall into this category but may have a chance with the next Congress.
There are three bills that will be reintroduced that online poker players should be concerned about:
• Introduced on Sept. 26 by Sen. Robert Menendez, The Internet Skill Game and Licensing Control Act, is the first bill introduced by a senator, and, if passed by the 111th Congress, it would “provide licensing of Internet skill game facilities,” poker being the main game.”
• The Skill Game Protection Act introduced by Rep. Robert Wexler June 7, 2007, would name poker as a skill game on a Federal level and therefore would both prevent it from being targeted by the anti-gambling UIGEA.
• Payments System Protection Act of 2008 would benefit online poker players by basically taking online poker off of the list of what the government thinks are illegal online gambling activities. If this bill gets reintroduced and passed, that list would be awfully short. It would prevent the UIGEA from stopping anything except sports-betting transactions.
Show your support of the PPA at the Website: http://pokerplayersalliance.org/
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