Q&A #1: Thoughts about the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

Hi

As an outsider who is adversely affected in that we allow gambling online, but the affect it is having on the cardrooms is causing me to wonder where it is safe to put my money, I have been thinking about why the American government would do this.

1) They get taxes from gamblers (unlike britain).
2) It is a growing economy and I know in Britain gambling has made the difference between a growing economy and recession.

So why would they do it?

is it religion?

I doubt it you have state lotteries and gambling has been tacitly accepted in many parts of america for years.

Is the government trying to protect people from themselves?

I doubt it, for an advanced country with a large GDP you have the most backwards healthcare and soclial provisions in the western world.

(no offence meant by this)

So this leads me to one conclusion-it is as is normally the case-money.

Where is this money going?
I heard about 6 billon dollars gambled, on the web last year ( iahve no reference for this so please ignore me if I am wrong)
The money is going to offshore companys and leaving America.

This is protectionoism at its worst and reminds me of the attempts to stop internet file sharing.

Your government should embrace the new economy of gambling it should give grants to startups to aid them in setting up rooms, it should teach Poker in schools(only kidding)
That way they will get a piece of the pie.

It is after all a very large pie and in a world of fast product saturation and cheap labour where 1st world countries are becoming service sector economies, any service that is growing this fast and has so little down side should be embraced and profited from.

Land of the Free – not anymore

Most of the posts I see here and on the only other forum I use regularly, 2+2, miss the point. Whether legal or not the Govt is winning this one so far.

By severely limiting the ability of US players to deposit and withdraw funds they have made online poker about 10% as desirable as it was.

The really good players don’t need to deposit very often…so the overall population of the poker sites will soon consist mainly of the remaining good US players, the good non US players and then the other non US players who can freely deposit. I would imagine that is a huge decrease in the number of folks who mainly deposit.

Plus, if the govt can make Neteller quit, it looks like to me that will be able to eventuall limit the ability of the poker sites themselves to send checks to their US customers, since it looks like that would be a violation of the UIGEA.