What will be the future of the UIGEA of the United States? This is the question on everyone's minds following the Congress' decision to debate the issue of online casino gambling in Washington this April. So why has the issue returned to US Congress tables? When the law against online casino gambling was passed back in 2006, the intention was of course to prohibit the act completely. They attempted this by first prohibiting the online casino from accepting funds from US citizens. Yet when unable to control the monetary management of companies offshore, the US prohibited the depositing of funds directly from the banks to the online casino.
Yet online casino gambling is far from dead.
Today there are still surprising amounts of US citizens gambling at the online casino at a regular basis, and the banks have little control over the issue. Despite this, they continue to spend millions of dollars each year in order to attempt blocking such transactions, and continue to fail. As a result, many are now questioning whether or not the UIGEA has become nothing more than a burden on American financial institutions?
With so many people still gambling via an online casino, it is also questionable if the UIGEA has proved profitable in any way to the United States since its introduction. On April 2nd 2008, the Congress will discuss these issues and more in front of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services. To this point, the best possible outcome can be the introduction of a regulation and enforcement act, proposed a while ago by Barney Frank. This would legalize online gambling and bring an end to the UIGEA.
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