The Problem with the UIGEA
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010There are still a lot of issues the online gambling market has to sort out before things are running seamlessly. One of the biggest ones is finding a uniform law to work under. The US and gambling have been toying with each other for years now. It was the 2006 UIGEA that was the most aggressive legislators ever got when it came to wagering. The bill failed, but it was supposed to push gambling out of the US market. The purpose was to task financial institutions with flagging and denying any activities that had to do with gambling. Banks were not crazy about the bill because they knew that the added cost would be a big one. Imagine having to create the manpower to go through every transaction. Sure there are coding laws used, but not all gambling transactions are coded the right way. If a bank accidently let a questionable transaction go through they were then in danger of the money being seized, but also in danger of hefty fines by the government. The trouble it caused to banks was one that they were hoping they could get rid of soon—no such luck. There are legislators trying to turn around the UIGEA, or at minimum amend it, but that isn’t happening as quickly as some would hope. The issue is still up in the air and the UIGEA stands.
Part of the problem with the UIGEA though is that it didn’t define what exactly “gambling” was. This left the rules sketchy and proves how outdated and irrelevant the bill really is. The only thing the bill ended up doing was pushing US gamblers to offshore companies. That channeled billions of dollars out of the country and most likely they are never going to be recovered in the market. Though legislators are pushing towards change, if the issue isn’t faced this year, it could be completely put on hold for another two years. This would be tragic for the US market. It means that states would not yet be able to take advantage of the huge tax revenue dollars that gaming brings in. It will take time to sort through the issue, but hopefully it is sooner than later.

