Lawmakers Urging Bush to Hold Off on Online Gambling Ban

November 18, 2008

The amount of people out there urging the government to legalize and regulate online gambling has gotten ridiculous. However, it would seem that no matter how much the majority of Americans say that they would like to see online gambling legalized, our President and elected officials are ignoring us.

Lawmakers and lobbyists pleaded with the White House on Monday to hold off on the implementation of proposed regulations prohibiting online gambling. The banking industry has come out against the regulations stating that they were ambiguous and unworkable and that they should be reworked. However, the Bush administration has chosen to move forward with the bill.

Online gambling proponents don’t want the bill implemented because it makes it harder to overturn online gambling, and the banks say that the burden that is being put upon them by the government is too much. They say that the banking industry does not have the ability to filter out online gambling transactions the way that the government is asking them to.

The new rules would make the banks responsible for stopping online gambling payments. The banks say that this is not in their area of expertise as it would force banks to reconcile conflicting state and federal rules on online gambling. They say that they are trying to make banks into police officers which is not what they are set up to do.

The US Treasury announced that they would be working with the Federal Reserve to bring the regulations to fruition as Congress has directed them to do.





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