Will Online Poker Finally Be Regulated And Licensed In the United States?

Published on February 4th, 2009 10:34 pm EST

night shot of capital hill - online gambling legislationIf online gambling ever becomes licensed and regulated in the United States, then we all need to chip in and buy Barney Frank a really nice present.

Frank, who is the chairman of the House financial services committee, told the Financial Times (link below) that he will be reintroducing a bill "over the next couple of weeks" that would "establish a licensing and regulatory framework for online gambling operators".

Mr. Frank had more potentially positive news for online gamblers within the United States - the UIGEA regulations may be included in the list of "midnight regulations" that the current Congress will look to rescind. The "midnight regulations" are regulations that an outgoing President will push through in the final days of his administration. The UIGEA regulations became final on January 19th - many have their fingers crossed that the current Congress will rescind the UIGEA regulations before they are implemented in December of 2009.

There could be a "perfect storm" of favorable conditions for online gambling legislation at the current time. You have a liberal President, a Democrat-led Congress and an intense thirst for new sources of tax revenues. The regulation and taxation of the online gambling industry would produce billions of dollars per year in new tax revenues for the US government. Not only that, but there has been a groundswell of support for online gambling legislation over the past few months. Hopefully politicians will start to realize how ridiculous it is to force online poker "underground", and that regulation and licensing is the solution, not the problem.

A repeal of the UIGEA regulations would be a great start.

A move to license and regulate the industry would be absolutely tremendous.

The online poker industry would be completely transformed overnight.

Imagine if American players were able to use credit cards and Paypal and Neteller to fund their accounts once again.

Imagine seeing an advertisement for PartyPoker.com during the nightly news.

Imagine getting an email from Party Poker, asking you to log in to your long-dormant Party Poker account to receive a 100% "Welcome Back" deposit bonus. They obviously didn't delete those dormant accounts..

Imagine a Yahoo! real-money poker room that was open to Americans. Imagine all of the major Vegas casinos opening up online rooms..

Instead of just keeping our fingers crossed, let's continue to make our voices heard. Maybe one day online poker will be regulated in the United States, and all of these great things will actually take place.

Source: FT.com - New Move To Legalize Online Gambling

--

Filed Under: UIGEA

Related Articles