By Samantha Williams
The year of 2010 has come to a rather abrupt end as the years generally do, and there have been some interesting developments for the casino online and the US online poker industry – you have to love a bit of scandal to wind up the old year!
In 2006 the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act UIGEA, effectively put paid to the ability of players to financially transact when playing at a casino online – relevant of course, only to the US! This did not necessarily make gambling illegal, but it made these financial transactions prohibitive for both tradition banking and ewallet financial institutions, and was related to some strangely obscure “Wire Act of 1961”.
PartyGaming alone paid over $100 million to the US Department of Justice for a non-prosecution deal, after having continued to accept bets from US players’, post-UIGEA promulgation. This is only one example of how prohibitive this law has made accepting financial transactions. One of the former founders of Party Gaming, which includes Party Casino, Party Bingo and the extremely popular Party Poker, personally paid $300 million to grease the wheels of justice; this was ex head honcho Anurag Dikshit!
Online Poker and casino online operators alike quite rightly labeled him a turncoat for cow-towing to this obscure law. All he had to do was sit tight, get his lawyers to do the work and wait for this industry to be legalized once again. He is not a US citizen, he lives in Europe, has sold all his shares in Party Gaming, and is in fact a 39 year old citizen of India. The chances of the US Government processing extradition to indict him, were about as likely as Michael Mizrachi landing the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy with 2-7 off-suit hole cards!
Anurag Dikshit has made a huge amount of money from the casino online business – but it appears he wants a clear conscience. When he pled guilty to accepting post-UIGEA bets, he also created a precedent for further prosecutions – and he is cooperating with Government Attorneys. He was sentenced to 1 year probation and lets not forget the $300 million! Plus his trial judge wants to know why his ex-partners have not been indicted?! Ruth Parasol Deleon and husband Russell Deleon, also live in Europe and are understandably furious!
During 2010, UIGEA came full into force, and the irony of this is that during 2010 the US live gambling industry woke up to the fact that they have been burying their heads ostrich-like, beneath the sands of the Nevada dessert. Las Vegas and New Jersey both have gambling-driven economies; they now realize that the casino online does not cannibalize existing business and want to laws changed again. UIGEA was never a law with concern for US citizens’ welfare in mind; it was politically driven by big gambling industry and while we are speaking of turncoats, the one of the same protagonists of UIGEA – Sen. Harry Reid, has also changed his mind!
