Third try at overturning US anti-gambling law begins today
Today’s the day! Or, perhaps to put it slightly more accurately, today marks another potentially key date in the fight against a particularly pernicious bit of anti-online gambling federal legislation. Said law is known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
UIGEA was passed in the later days of the Bush Administration, shoehorned into an anti-terrorism bill called the Security and Accountability For Every Port (or SAFE Port) Act of 2006. UIGEA effectively makes online gambling in America impossible, as it bars financial institutions from allowing transfers of funds to internet gambling websites. The sticking points for UIGEA, as the pro-internet gambling lobby sees it, are two: 1) UIGEA calls upon the financial institutions to actually enforce the law, i.e. they are responsible for denying payment to a site which may be for gambling purposes; and 2) certain forms of online gambling – including horseracing, fantasy sports and state lotteries – remain permissible under UIGEA.
Since the SAFE Port Act passed in 2007, US Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) has been UIGEA’s perhaps most vehement critic on Capitol Hill. Last year, Frank introduced two bills that would either overturn UIGEA or render the law so ineffective via modification as to make it irrelevant; unfortunately, the first attempt couldn’t even make it out of the House Financial Services Committee over which Frank presides.
Frank keeps plugging away, however, and his first chance at dismantling UIGEA in the Obama Administration comes today. Reuters has reported that the Rep’s third crack would “exempt operators from the ban enacted in 2006” if “licensed and regulated.” With the appropriately congressional-sounding tones required at such occasions, Frank’s official statement promised his bill “will enable Americans to bet online and put an end to an inappropriate interference with their personal freedom.”
God bless America! Except maybe Minnesota, that is.
(Incidentally, software providers Rival, Top Game, RTG and Vegas Technology are still supplying online casino action for US players, UIGEA be damned.)