Experts Speak Out on UIGEA

March 24, 2009

It seems that with the Obama Administration in office, many experts are starting to feel a little braver about their role in online gambling and what they think about the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA. Up until now many experts were hesitant to speak out on behalf of legalizing online gambling for fear of retribution from the United States government � but now they feel as though they can without incident.

The US government had made it very clear that online gamblig was not to be participated in, but they also said that those connected with it would suffer consequences as well. However, now that this threat has been eliminated, many of them have come forward to say that they think that the UIGEA should be overturned. They say that only the processing of payments for online gambling has been made illegal, not the gambling itself, and therefore it is somewhat of a waste of a law. They say that it doesn�t mean anything to most people.

It has definitely made it harder for some people to play at online gambling, but where there is a will, there is a way. Not only do they find it absurd that the law was passed in the first place but they think that there are many people who don�t understand how the law really affects them. They say that poker players are consistently fighting against the online gambling ban when really it doesn�t even involve them.

They say that the UIGEA actually has no impact on poker at all because online poker is not legal under federal law. They say that if there is a site that does nothing but poker, then they are exempt from the UIGEA. Those sites that offer poker plus other online gambling games are not exempt. The courts have already ruled that poker is not gambling, so there is no issue there for those sites.






Back to March 09 Archive.