Thursday, March 12, 2009

Barney Frank and Internet Gambling

Internet Gambling Back on the Table?

MARCH 11, 2009 - eMarketer

Rolling the virtual dice…

Smart money is betting that Congress will repeal the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) this year, or at least soon.

Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, plans to bring back legislation to repeal the UIGEA this month. Rep. Frank maintains that online gambling is a fundamental freedom, and that attempts to make it illegal smack of Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.

In addition, much of the political momentum for repeal of the act is coming from online poker players who are fighting back.

“There is a dramatic need to have a regulated system that protects American consumers,” Jeffrey Sandman, a spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, told Reuters. “Right now, it's the Wild West.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates that the amount the US could raise from regulating and taxing Internet gambling is about 22% higher than it was in 2007—because US online gambling has grown despite the ban.
In fact, comScore Media Metrix found that as of last November, online gambling was the ninth-fastest-growing category online.

Making it illegal for businesses to knowingly transfer payments to Internet gambling operations, including payments by credit card, wire transfer or check, the 2006 ban was approved when Republicans still controlled both houses of Congress and President Bush was in the White House—and before the economy collapsed.