Online poker gets UIGEA lifeline

US online poker players and also online poker players worldwide have been given a special Thanksgiving gift.  On Tuesday the heavily disputed UIGEA laws were to be enforced in the US.  However the enforcement of the UIGEA has now been delayed for six months while concerns from the Poker Player’s Alliance are addressed giving online poker a UIGEA lifeline.

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In 2006 the United States passed the SAFE Port Act, a piece of legislation aimed to increase security of US ports and the UIGEA was attached to it. As there is no way that a politician would vote against legislation which helped to increase US national security, it was deemed the perfect place to attach the UIGEA. The UIGEA was introduced to outlaw all online gambling in the US by stopping financial transactions to offshore gambling websites. All sectors of online gambling were affected from online poker and casinos through to online bingo. Legal and above board payment processors in the world of online poker such as Neteller were forced to pay millions of dollars in fines or be brought before the US Department of Justice.  In more recent times millions of dollars of players withdrawals from the two biggest online poker sites in the world, FullTilt Poker and PokerStars, were frozen in a move which simply saw these two poker sites stump up the cash and cover the withdrawals themselves.

So what does the six month delay to the UIGEA actually mean?  Unfortunately it isn’t the end of the UIGEA, far from it.  But it is another six months in which pro-online gambling groups, including the Poker Player’s Alliance and also congressman Barney Frank and the other 66 congressmen who support regulation of online poker, can attempt to overturn the UIGEA.

This poker news story may not be the ultimate judgement sought by US online poker players but it is a start and over the next six months you can be sure that the pro-online poker groups and US online poker player will strive to make playing online poker, one of America’s favourite pastimes, a fair and legal game in the US.

27th November 2009

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Article Last Updated: 26/05/2010 13:32:31

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