Will UIGEA Be the Demise of the US Online Gambling Casino
By Jerry Whittaker
Most people who are aux fait with the online gambling casino genre, have some knowledge of the processes of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and how it affects this industry. This act was promulgated in 2006; and quite literally saw gambling casinos online going out of business overnight. It also saw many casinos moving their businesses elsewhere to escape the draconian tenets it encompasses, but what this effectively did was take the freedom of choice away from US people and casino operators – and this was thrust upon them.
It did not make online gambling illegal, but it made it virtually impossible for many gambling casino operators. Some continue to plod away at the market place, but if you take the US facing gambling market and look at it, this is a massive marketplace. There are online bingo networks in the US who count themselves lucky for having 13 000 members. In the UK the best bingo sites count members in the millions. And this is the difference between “regulation” as apposed to “restriction”.
What this act has also done is have the effect of making the big operators even bigger, they are able to get away with a lot of things small traders cannot. In particular this can be said of US facing poker rooms. The big guys keep on doing what they have always done and the smaller guys get gobbled up in the process, which really makes it a war of attrition and completely against the principles of free trade.
UIGEA has essentially not been something that was enacted for the greater good of all, and whether or not it will be the demise of the US gambling casino, now lies at the feet of the new presidential dispensation. If I were president Obama, this act would not be high on my agenda; he certainly has bigger fish to fry. However the masses of the world wide population who want to be able to gamble online, should make a difference.
The issue does not only lie with problem gambling, the issue of UIGEA lies with massive losses in income for small island states such as Antigua and Barbuda. It lies with the capability of online employment. Thousands of people lost their jobs and livelihoods as well as their ability to make a living with the implementation of this act. It went against the tenets of the WTO, and free trade.
The Department of Justice is already initiating prosecutions against organization who allow online gambling casino financial transaction to take place for their clients and demanding millions of dollars in reparations. UIGEA rules are being implemented now that it is 2010, so it is highly unlikely any new US gambling casinos will come online and chances are those that do exist will be put under even greater pressure.
