The Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
January
20, 2010
There has been a lot of
talk about the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act or UIGEA over
the past few years. There are many questions from online gambling fans
as they don’t understand how it works and what they are and aren’t
allowed to do. The passage of the bill is just as confusing as many
don’t understand why it was passed the way that it was – and why is it
that people didn’t know that it was even on the table to be passed?
The UIGEA was passed in October of 2006, and was done in such a way that
no one was supposed to realize that it was there until it was too late.
The UIGEA was attached to The Safe Port Act by Rep. Bill Frist and no
one in the Senate even realized that it was there until roughly 15
minutes before it was on the floor for debate. The idea of the basic
Safe Port Act was not necessarily a bad one – it was means to protect
the security of US borders and both the Senate and the House felt that
it was a meaningful bill.
However, Frist attached the online gambling bill to something that he
knew would pass because it would not have passed on its own merit. The
online gambling community was outraged that this could happen, and they
immediately began fighting the bill. For the record it does not actually
make online gambling illegal, but it does make the processing of
payments for it illegal – and one cannot survive without the other.
Online gambling stocks took a huge hit almost immediately as people
started dumping their shares of the industry as it looked as though
there was no way of coming back from a hit like this. But Rep Barney
Frank and other members of the legislature are working to have it
overturned now, it is simply a waiting game until it is.
