Internet gambling

Clarissa Kane | Published on September 23, 2007

It was about a year ago that the internet gambling and poker communities received a blow they find it hard to recover from, even today. It had not been completely unexpected, but the way the 2006 UIGEA was passed, raised more questions rather than answered any.
Why did it have to be passed as if it didn’t enjoy enough support? Probably because it didn’t. What did port security have to do with the basic rights of every American citizen to spend the money he/she earned the way he/she wanted to?

What’s going to be next? Is the government going to tell people which movies they can watch and which they can’t?

How was something like that possible in a free country? How come horse-racing is an exception? Isn’t that the purest type of gambling?


Sure, people who were and are for the UIGEA had their own set of rock solid arguments, as well. Underage gambling is something that should be tackled and dealt with, in a most efficient manner, and without compromises. Sure, compulsive gamblers had to be protected somehow, and funds needed to be kept in the country. As time wears on though, it becomes more and more obvious the UIGEA is NOT the answer to these problems.

How exactly does it fend off underage gambling? Are compulsive gamblers better protected now than they were before the UIGEA? You’d have to live in a cave and be incredibly naïve on top of it, to believe that.

In conclusion, the UIGEA fails miserably to attain any of its declared goals. What does that make it? An obsolete law. As a matter of fact, it had been obsolete even before it was passed, and many a lawmaker could see that very clearly.


Internet gambling has to be regulated. It cannot go on being a lawless wasteland in which people can only hope that their money is treated with respect. Underage gambling has to be weeded out, and compulsive gambling has to receive the proper attention.

These are the problems that Massachusetts Senator, Barney Frank, tries to tackle in his IGREA (Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act) which he’s pushing to replace the UIGEA with.

Support for Barney Frank’s initiative was quick to surface, thus now the UIGEA is under attack on several different fronts. Since, from an international perspective, the Act is illegal, the WTO (World Trade Organization) has appealed to US lawmakers to repeal it, countless times already.

The small island state of Antigua is claiming that the US ban on online poker and gambling has caused the country damages worth $3,4 billion, backing its claim up with documents and facts. What’s worse, the WTO has also sided with Antigua, and a few other countries who feel that the US gambling ban is a direct breach of the very nature of free international trade agreements. It sets a dangerous precedent in this respect, something that could lead to all previous agreements being thrown out, and all international trade turned completely upside down.


Meanwhile, the question: who is the beneficiary of the problems stirred by the UIGEA, remains unanswered. Well, whoever it may be, I’m sure he’ll close shop pretty soon, as the pressure un behalf of the IGREA is mounting every day, and Americans will soon gain one of their fundamental liberties back – this time within a fully regulated legal framework.

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