Letter to Treasury Secretary Regarding UIGEA

April 30, 2008

Many thought that when Barney Frank started his tirade against online gambling that at some point he would simply quietly go away. They said that he didn’t stand a chance against the Bush Administration, and that he should quit while he was ahead. However, Frank is still here and now a lot more people have joined him as well.

It would seem that after Frank’s speech on April 2nd that he truly inspired people to start standing up for their rights, and that would be the case. Reps. Luis Gutierrez, Ron Paul and Pete King have sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke saying that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA, is ineffective at best.

The letter stated that "The regulations, like the underlying legislation, fail to define the term 'unlawful Internet gambling,' leaving it to each financial institution to reconcile conflicting state and federal laws, court decisions and inconsistent Department of Justice interpretations when determining whether to process a transaction."

They say that they are vehemently opposed to any further legislation toward the UIGEA, and that they are going to fight against the implementation of the regulations that they have already passed. They are concerned that by putting the onus on the banks to do their fact checking basically for them, that they are putting them in a bad position – one they are not comfortable being in.

The banks are heartened by the support by the legislators and say that they need something done as they cannot comply with their wishes. They are concerned that checks, etc. will be used for online gambling and they don’t want to end up under investigation because they missed a few transactions.

Back to April 2008 Archive.