Friday, May 28, 2010

UIGEA - Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

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The common question asked in context with online poker that “Is it legal or illegal” or “as per UIGEA is playing online poker illegal” ?
Few people know the answer and more importantly very few sources are there to get a reliable answer from.
In short, online gambling (poker) is not illegal in US and neither does UIGEA makes any attempt to make it illegal. The ground reality is that there are no such state or federal laws that stops you from playing online . So what exactly UIGEA does and why is so much uncertainty prevails around internet poker.

Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act prevents US banks or businesses to allow and accept any kind of transactions related to unlawful online gambling. It means that this act simply don't allow any transactions from financial institution to any gambling site. The main reason for this is money laundering and black money from the mafia.
Due to this the US players have to use third party payment processors like Neteller etc to make any transactions related to gambling. UIGEA was opposed by Barney Frank( US congressman ) in order to change some of the gambling aspects related to online gambling. Bill was able to delay the UIGEA implementations.

What does UIGEA do?UIGEA - Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
UIGEA does not allow any business to take money for the purpose of unlawful online gambling.

UIGEA directs the federal reserve to create new regulations which states that how block these transactions related to unlawful online gambling. UIGEA does not cover paper checks.

What UIGEA doesn't do
UIGEA doesn't make online gambling illegal. It only refers to the current illegal gambling forms. It simply says that nothing new should be introduced in the existing laws related to online gambling.

This law is nowhere related to the players. It is only related to the financial institutions or banks.

This new law UIGEA does not relate to poker only, it is related to every online gambling game.
UIGEA has affected the US players very deeply because now the US players can't make any transactions related to online gambling.

So due to this reason some of the online gambling sites like party poker have decided to Quit from US market for their good. What this means is that if you are in US and want to plays on party poker you will not be able to do so. But as an US citizen, you still have the privilege to play online poker.

While some sites decided to leave others decided to stay because of the decreased competition in the market.

The sites will also find other legal ways to transfer funds related to gambling just to be on the safe side of the act.

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