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The UIGEA needn't screw up your online entertainment
The publication Techworld carried a positive article this week on the enforcement problems that may confront US officials attempting to enforce the recently passed Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which seeks to disrupt financial transactions between American players and their online gambling sites of choice.
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The US publication opines that domestic gamblers are finding alternative ways to continue playing, and quotes experts on the subject.
People who bet online will not face criminal prosecution under the federal law because it does not specifically ban Internet gambling; instead it requires that banks and other financial institutions block credit-card payments to gambling sites, the article argues, although it should be pointed out that in a minority of states, state laws render online gambling illegal.
Frank Catania, a former New Jersey gambling regulator is quoted as saying: "If you send a check in, you'll be fine. There's no way it's going to stop."
The Federal Reserve is not expected to force banks to screen personal checks or other payment methods that are more difficult to track, other experts say.
The article examines the history of global online gambling since 1995, including the passage of the UIGEA and it's disastrous consequences for the public companies mostly listed on the London Stock Exchange. In the wake of the law's passage, it reports, investors in London sold off PartyGaming and other Internet gambling stocks, erasing $7 billion from the stock exchange in a matter of days. Many of those British companies said they would no longer accept wagers from their most lucrative market across the Atlantic.
But other gambling sites, such as the privately owned Bodog and PokerStars, say they will continue to serve American customers. Their offshore locales put them beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement - unlike gambling executives in Britain, who face extradition under a 2004 treaty between the US and the UK that was originally intended for extraditing terror suspects.
Industry pundits don't expect the ban to end online gambling. "I have no doubt the private operators will pick up the slack," says Tejinder Randhawa, an analyst for Evolution Securities in London.
Congress could still decide to roll back or modify the law, Techworld suggests. The Poker Players Alliance hopes to mobilise the 23 million online card players in the States into a powerful lobby to counteract opposition to online gambling.
"Prohibition doesn't work," says Alliance president Michael Bolcerek, going on to suggest that regulation and not prohibition should be the course steered by the US Congress. Instead, Bolcerek says, "you'll find sites that won't abide by industry aims to safeguard the American public."
For now, online gamblers are cautiously making other plans. Lee Sullivan, of Alexandria, Virginia, says she might spend less time in front of the computer and more time at the corner bar shooting pool.
"If it all goes away, it'll be a bummer--but it won't be the end of the world," says Sullivan, who won a free trip to last August's World Series of Poker after qualifying through the PokerStars site. "Still, I don't see how the U.S. government can put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one."
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