Unraveling the UIGEA

October 15, 2008

The UIGEA is cut up into several different parts, all of which are designed to make it more confusing for the average person to read. The main idea is that it was attached to the SAFE Port Act which was signed into law on October 13, 2006. It then went into effect July of 2007.

The law made all things having to do with payment processing as they pertain to online gambling illegal. It was supposedly to protect America�s maritime trading centers, but what it really did was give the government control over online gambling.

The various sections break down into this. One says that online gambling is the same as wire betting as it was described in the Wire Act of 1961. This report has since been discredited, but the law still stands. It specifies that horse racing is legal, but pretty much leaves the rest of it to your imagination.

One section says that you can have online gambling as long as it stays within the state where it was started. So if California wants online gambling they should be good to go as long as they keep it in California. There is even a whole section on definitions.

The main idea behind the UIGEA is to keep it confusing enough that it won�t make sense to most people and long enough that anyone who does understand it will fall asleep before reading all of it. However, anyone who knows anything about online gambling will know that their players don�t give up that easily.






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