Frank Attacks Online Gambling Again

April 14, 2008

Barney Frank and Ron Paul have introduced a new bill, H.R. 5767, that will seek to prohibit the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Treasury Secretary from "proposing, prescribing, or implementing any regulation that requires the financial services industry to identify and block Internet gambling transactions."

Now that sounds like a mouthful, but it is exactly what the banks want. The financial services industry does not have the ability to follow up on the regulations that have been set forth by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006. In fact, they have complained wholeheartedly that it is next to impossible for them to monitor all online gambling transactions. This bill would make it so that they don’t have to.

If the bill passes, online gambling is basically free again. The UIGEA will have lost its legs and that is exactly what the pro online gambling forces want. The government though that by making online payment processing of online gambling illegal they would be able to stop online gambling.

However, all it did was put the onus of online gambling on the banks – who are ill equipped to handle it. Both Paul and Frank believe that the UIGEA is already “infringing on personal freedoms” by telling people what they can and cannot do with their money, or on the internet. Many agree with the two men and want to see the UIGEA eliminated.

Frank has another bill that would make online gambling legal, but regulated. The consensus is that if the US made online gambling legal they could make a lot of money for our country from it. However, so far that argument has not persuaded the powers that be from changing it.




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