Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
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ABA Speaks Out Against UIGEA |
 The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), also known as the bill that’s currently killing online poker in the US, has recently come under review by the American Banking Association. Previously the ABA had kept a neutral stance on the act, but as of last week Republican Senators John Sununu (H) and Pete Domenici (NM) brought their concerns to the heads of the Treasury and Federal Reserve. The impending analysis of the bill bodes to be good news for all us online poker folks.
The ABA’s official response is pretty balls-out about their burgeoning stance against the bill:
"ABA believes that the proposal, in large part due to the nature of the statute itself, will fail to create a practical process for intercepting prohibited conduct that maintains an efficiently functioning payments system."
And a little later: "(W)e believe that UIGEA will in the end catch more banks in a compliance trap and do greater damage to the competitiveness of the American payments system, than it will stop gambling enterprises from profiting on illegal wagering."
And then the real killer:
"In other words, in the view of the drafters of the legislation, all the sophistication of the FBI, Secret Service, and other police computerized detection systems and investigative expertise devoted to fighting terrorism and financial crime are inadequate to the task of apprehending the unlawful gambling business or confiscating its revenues. ABA believes that punting this obligation to the participants in the U.S. payment system is an unprecedented delegation of governmental responsibility with no prospect of practical success in exchange for all the burden it imposes."
Following from there, the ABA made a list of 9 action points about the UIGEA that need to be addressed:
1. The exemption language in the proposed rule should be reinforced to underscore that all participants in the specified payment systems except those with a customer relationship with the Internet gambling business are exempt.
2. ABA urges the Agencies to clarify the Prohibition to confirm that compliance by all non-exempt participants in any designated systems can always be satisfied through procedures limited to commercial customers or merchants acting in the capacity of Internet gambling businesses.
3. Preservation of the "over-blocking" provisions of the Prohibition is essential to workability for financial institutions.
4. The definition of what constitutes "unlawful Internet gambling" is inadequate. It must be rectified.
5. The Prohibition's handling of cross-border relationships presents substantial problems for financial institutions and should be revised.
6. The Prohibition should clarify what exactly the standard is for when a bank "becomes aware" that a commercial customer has received an unlawful Internet gambling-related transaction.
7. Establishment and maintenance of a list of unlawful Internet gambling businesses by the government may be an approach to pursue, but only if certain essential conditions are met.
8. The description of compliant reasonable policies and procedures can be improved.
9. Financial Institutions should have a longer period to phase-in the new policies and procedures prior to the effective date.
Of course nothing’s official yet, but obviously this statement is an important one in the battle against the UIGEA and its ridiculous stance against online poker.
Hopefully this will be only the beginning in a series of acts that will have everything righted and back to the way it should be, and sooner rather than later.
March 15, 2008 |
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