Poker Legislation News
The UIGEA has been criticized from both the legislative and legal fronts, and recently, two of America's top Congressmen have weighed in on the dispute between the United States and European Union over internet gambling. Read more »
The US seems to be playing a holding game with its international gaming complaints: on one hand the US Trade Representative keeps postponing a meeting with EU delegates, and on the other hand the deadline for settling the dispute between the US and the Caribbean island of Antigua has been changed once more, this time to October 1st. Read more »
The US Trade Representative keeps dismissing the EU's efforts to discuss the gaming situation between the superpowers – the meetings between them were scheduled originally for the end of July, yet they have been given a anew postponement with no apparent justification or an alternative date set. Read more »
Republican Congressman Pete Sessions (TX) introduced HR 6663, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Clarification and Implementation Act of 2008. On the surface, the bill seems like a good deal for online poker, but the online poker industry is not convinced. Read more »
United States Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) introduced HR 6663, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Clarification and Implementation Act of 2008 intending to diagnose exactly what should be deemed legal and illegal under the UIGEA. Read more »
HR 2140, the Internet Gambling Study Act, was scheduled to be marked up on Wednesday, July 30th, but a resolution and report on Karl Rove took center stage, making national headlines and forcing discussion of several bills on the docket to be postponed. Read more »
Recently, four Congressmen wrote to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Bernanke. Their goal was simple: Clarify the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act as to what is legal and illegal under its jurisdiction. Read more »
You may have never heard of the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association. It's called iMEGA for short and it's leading the charge to declare the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act unconstitutional. How, you ask, could the 2006 law be overturned? iMEGA is on the verge of filing its claim in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the Northeast United States, charging that the UIGEA violates First Amendment rights. A judge recently granted the organization standing to sue. PokerNewsDaily recently spoke with iMEGA Executive Director Ed Leyden to learn more about the Washington-based organization and the future of its lawsuit. Read more »
In a House Financial Services Committee hearing on June 25th, the topic was HR 5767, which would have blocked the regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) from becoming a reality. Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) led the opposition to the bill. Bachus centered his arguments not on the merits of the UIGEA or even on whether the law could ever actually be enforced. Instead, Bachus took the moral road, focusing on the deleterious effects of gambling on our nation's youth. Read more »
Internet gambling has been thrown under the bus by the Republican leadership in the United States. Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who has been directing the opposition to the return of the industry to the United States, has claimed that allowing online poker to exist will do nothing more than bring this social ill right into our children's bedrooms. Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) has struck back, introducing HR 6501 on Wednesday. The bill offers up to $40 billion over the next ten years to individuals currently or previously in foster care as well as workers in declining economic industries. With this new money, these individuals can seek out job training and secondary education opportunities in order to improve their skills in the workplace. All of the money comes from taxation of the internet gambling industry in the United States, assuming Congress decides to regulate it. Read more »
In an unexpected turn of events on Wednesday, HR 5767, a bill proposed by Congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) that would have stopped the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve from implementing the regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, was defeated in the House Financial Services Committee. A vote for an amendment by Congressman Peter King that would have required cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice to identify what "illegal" and "legal" transactions were under the UIGEA ended in a dead heat largely along party lines. When the smoke cleared, the 32-32 vote meant that the amendment was defeated. The Committee then turned to a verbal vote for HR 5767, which was defeated when the "Nays" greatly outnumbered the "Yays." The news came as a shock to many in the internet gambling industry. Read more »
In March, the Remote Gambling Association filed a complaint with the European Commission. The issue stemmed from the United States allowing domestic operators of sites that allow U.S. citizens to wager on horse racing, fantasy sports, and lotteries, but prohibiting operators like PartyPoker from soliciting U.S. customers. This inconsistency prompted the RGA, whose membership includes the major online poker companies like Victor Chandler, Unibet, and Ladbrokes, to file a formal complaint. In response to the RGA's complaint, the Commission sent the U.S. Trade Representative a formal questionnaire. Read more »
While you were busy hitting the links or just taking it easy this weekend, two big developments occurred on the legislative front in the United States. To catch you up to speed, back in 2006, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, from Tennessee, pushed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act through Congress. Read more »
