Rep. Barney Frank moves forward with online gambling bill

Representative Barney Frank will unveil its online gambling bill tomorrow, which aims at repealing the ban on the U.S. banks to process payments to and from online gambling websites. Although details of the internet gambling bill will not be made available until Wednesday, reports indicate that it would exempt operators that are licensed and regulated from the ban passed back in 2006 during Republican-controlled Congress. Rep. Barney Frank was quoted commenting on his bill as one that "will enable Americans to bet online and put an end to an inappropriate interference with their personal freedom." It remains unclear which online gambling websites are considered licensed and regulated, if there would be framework for the actual licensing of offshore online gambling websites or whether the bill would simply attempt to appeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

It's also uncertain how would the new online gambling bill progress through the branches of the legislature. If the bill simply aims to lift the heavy workload of policing every financial transaction looking for offshore gambling trace from the banks shoulders, there is a good chance the bill would pass, considering the troublesome state of the U.S. banking industry. But if the Rep. Barney Frank's online gambling bill aims to create legal base for licensing offshore online gambling companies to operate in the United States - there would be plenty of opposition fueled by lobbying dollars from the land based casinos and other interest groups. Speculation aside, the full text of the Frank's online gambling bill was promised to be made available on Wednesday.

Published on 05/05/2009