Ethics

UIGEA Gambling Regulations Don't Do Much

By Ed Brayton

The Bush administration is finally done with the implementation rules for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), and according to gambling law expert I. Nelson Rose, they don't really do all that much.

It took 66 pages of fine print. But in the end the federal regulators charged with making regulations to enforce the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act ("UIGEA") simply gave up. They were supposed to make rules forcing financial institutions to identify and block money transfers for unlawful Internet gambling transactions. But they were defeated by the difficulty of defining what was unlawful and the impossibility of tracking individual transactions. So they told credit card companies to come up with some additional code numbers for gambling transactions and everyone else can basically continue to do what they are now doing - oh, and financial institutions have to send a notice to all their clients telling them not to be involved in illegal gambling.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 22, 2008 (boomark / email).