U.S. Representatives take stand against online gambling law

U.S. Representatives take stand against online gambling law A bi-partisan initiative to prevent the implementation of the online gambling law known as UIGEA is picking up momentum on Capitol Hill. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, along with Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Pete King (R-N.Y.), sent a letter Tuesday to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke telling them to hold off on writing new regulations based on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), urging the Treasury not to waste their time with enforcing the ban on online gambling. "We believe it would be imprudent for you to devote additional agency resources to this Sisyphean task, especially as we intend to vigorously pursue legislation to prevent the implementation of these regulations," part of the letter read.

The online gambling law was passed late 2006 and aimed to cut off online gambling in the United States by targeting the financial institutions, which happen to process transactions for online gambling, without being directly involved, such as banks, clearing houses and credit card processors, by making it illegal for them to process transactions to and from online gambling companies. The House Financial Services Committee, along with the financial sector, have long argued that the new online gambling law puts enormous pressure on the banks to sort trough millions of transactions daily in order to identify a few thousand going to offshore online gambling websites, as well as making the financial system participants not only law enforcers, but also granting them judiciary power of the anti online gambling law.

Published on 04/23/2008