By Samantha Williams

Protectionism. Violation of trade agreements. Curtailing of freedom of choice.  These are all heavy handed words to throw about, but these words are exactly the things that the United States federal government has been accused of since the infamous UIGEA was signed into law.  Rather than do something good for everyone concerned, it seems that UIGEA has done more than its share of harm.

One only has to look at the trade in service violations compensation filed by the European Union – with all of its 27 member states – along with China, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Costa Rica, Canada and India.  These claims alone can cost the United States government some $100 B.  The US may have gotten away with getting slapped by the World Trade Organization with a mere $21 M in annual fines to Antigua and Barbuda instead of $3.4 B.  Nonetheless, when Antigua and Barbados stops enforcing US copyright and intellectual property rights in their jurisdiction as part of the WTO deal, it will still hurt a lot for the US. 

Nobody disagrees with the fact that UIGEA is a half-baked law at best.  It is based on outmoded ideas and is full of loopholes.  There is also no way to implement this law properly.  The Bank of America has already come forward and stated that executing measures that will make its procedures comply with UIGEA will result in unnecessary delays and added costs for their clients’ transactions.  To sort transactions that are deemed illegal – paid to and received from online gambling companies – from transactions that are legitimate will only lead to delays, especially for clients whose transactions are legitimate in the first place.

One also cannot deny a sniff of hypocrisy surrounding UIGEA.  It is illegal for offshore online gaming sites to accept bets from American players, but that does not mean that it is illegal for American players to place bets on online gaming sites.  It is especially not illegal to place these bets on domestic online gaming companies.  No wonder the members of the European Union are crying foul in this situation. 

If it is a matter of losing huge amounts of taxable income for the US federal government, the government should just have come forward and said so, and instead implemented measures that will regulate the online gaming industry instead of choking it, instead of passing this vague, nonsensical law called UIGEA.  In this way, everybody wins.  Patrons of online gaming sites will get whatever fun they want from these websites without feeling like they are being told what they should and should not do.  Companies moving within the gaming industry will get to be happy doing business with American players.  The US federal government will get the tax money that it craves to squeeze from the industry.  Taxation required or not, everybody is still happy.

Thankfully, there are a number of bills in Congress that are seeking to impose exemptions to the UIGEA, including one that seeks to exclude skill games like poker, backgammon, chess and mahjong from being covered by UIGEA.  We can all still look forward to some good news in the future and hope that what needs to be learned from the UIGEA experience will be remembered.

By Samantha Williams 

If you dig deep into the history of gambling you’ll find that it all started with lotteries – the number game where winning was pure chance.  It is a common tendency for human beings to be self-centered in everything as to think what is in it for me?  Irrespective of territorial limitations, genre divisions, ethnic variations, racial differences etc. all the people of this world are having unison in one thing, that is to promote their well being, feel happiness when good things come their way and sorrow when bad things occur. 

So the very concept of conducting lotteries hinges on this self-belief that winning of the first prize is only theirs.  A large collection from the masses with small individual contributions makes the prizes hefty and attractive.  The unique feature of betting on lottery tickets is that no one bothers about the loss, which is only too small to cause worry, and looks forward to the next opportunity of raffle dates and buys more tickets to widen the net for capturing the fortune.  As lottery is a mass game engaging a large number of anonymous people this caught up like wild fire right from the start, centuries back.  As of today, even Governments are running lotteries, both offline and online towards raising funds for their welfare expenses.  This game of pure chance, making one individual winner to thrive at the expense of thousands of others will go on for ever.  There can not be any serious gambler for lotteries as this suits any one and every one. 

The other gambling games of numbers – roulette; Bingo; slot machines; blackjack; dice and the like – have the same thing in common, where there is no mental skill or playing ability called for.  It is pure chance of Lady Luck smiling on you to win fabulous prizes on all these gambling varieties.  The wager is totally blind, notwithstanding all the hypes and hoopla, numerology, superstitions, omens, this and that.  All players of these games online are no different from those millions playing in the gambling dens of the real world.  What makes many people to be engrossed on these gambling games again and again is their fervent hope that one day or the other they will win a bounty.  Here also the craze is not by preference but by habit only without exception.

The real challenge is faced by the gamblers worldwide is in games of mental skill and calculative ability to better the others in competition.  For example in horse racing (prior-fixing not included) the race goers will be studying even the minute details of the horses in each race, their track record; previous performances; distances run earlier; weights carried; jockeys driven etc. and even the details of the father and mother of the horse to determine the pedigree.  In addition they make all the calculations for arriving at a winning combination of numbers for Jackpots; Thanala; Win; Forecast and so on. This needs a lot of brain work and those who make these calculations right stand a very good chance of winning. Another fine example is Cards playing – Poker and others where you have to be very shrewd in playing with full concentration and mental strain to defeat others in the fray.  Understandably, it is these gambling games that are preferred by many people for gambling both offline and online.