iMEGAs Request to Include Information Rejected by DoJ

March 07, 2009 | News Category: Gaming Law

0 Comments The Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) are in the process of suing in order to have the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) declared as unconstitutional. iMEGA feel that the UIGEA should be made "void for vagueness."

iMEGA recently requested that the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) accept their petition to include the complications that have arisen in the North Dakota and New Hampshire state lotteries as a result of the UIGEA. Before adding new material to the record in a court case, it is considered a simple professional courtesy to ask the other party before adding the material. The DoJ have denied their request to supplement the record in order to inform the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals about the issue. iMEGA will now have to file a motion in the court in order to submit the information.

Since the final regulations of the UIGEA were only published and brought into effect after iMEGA took the US Government to court, it makes sense that the court would want to consider new information that has come to light regarding the issues.

As a result of the UIGEA, Visa and MasterCard have blocked payments to Internet casinos. Visa and MasterCard changed the coding that is to be used to buy lottery tickets online to the same code that is used for other types of online gambling. Lotteries, however, are exempt according to the UIGEA.

As a result of this mistake, there is the potential for millions of dollars in lottery ticket sales to be lost for North Dakota and New Hampshire, as many lottery players buy online subscriptions to the lotteries using their Visas and MasterCards. A number of state government funded programs, such as public education, rely on some of their income from the lottery. One can easily see how this can potentially be impacted negatively since around 24% of New Hampshire's state lottery tickets are sold on the Internet.

Joe Brennan Jr., chairman of iMEGA posed the question as to whether the Justice Department do not "think that there is anything 'unusual' about credit card companies blocking purchases that are clearly allowed by the very law they're trying to defend?" Mr Brennan Jr. continued to explain that a quarter of the New Hampshire's lottery income could be lost, and that they are supposed to be protected by the UIGEA. He said "I'm not a lawyer, but that seems like 'unusual circumstances' to me."

Brennan was not surprised that the DoJ did not want to consent to the request to include the information regarding the blocking of the credit card transactions. He noted that it is a proof of what iMEGA claimed from the beginning, that the UIGEA laws are so vague that "the banks and credit card companies would wind up blocking every game transaction - even exempted ones - rather than risk violating the law." He continued to say "It's no longer just a theory. It's a fact."

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