Internet Gambling Bill to Take Next Step

April 14, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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The online gambling world has been waiting for Barney Frank’s online gambling bill to take the next step forward in the legal process. Although many had expected that the House Financial Services Committee would have already heard the bill, there have been long delays due to other pressing legal issues, such as the health bill. It seems, however, that Congress is finally ready to move forward with the Barney Frank online gambling bill.

Finally, after about a year of delays, the House Financial Services Committee will hear Barney Frank’s Internet gambling bill, which proposes to legalize and regulate online gambling in the United States. The date set for the hearing is for the end of this week, on Friday, April 16th 2010.

Along with the main online gambling bill, Barney Frank has a side bill, which proposes to delay the implementation of the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) by one more year. This one year delay would be so that there is time for the Frank online gambling bill to work its way through official channels without the implementation of the UIGEA occurring simultaneously, since this could cause confusion should the online gambling bill become law. Should Barney Frank’s main online gambling bill be adopted as a new law, the UIGEA would be virtually moot.

At this time, the UIGEA is currently suspended. In response to various requests in November, the Treasury chose to suspend the starting date for the implementation of the UIGEA. Although the request had been for one year, the Treasury suspended the UIGEA implementation by six months. The suspended starting date is nearly here, which makes it that much more important that Barney Frank’s companion bill be passed, in order to give his main bill the time it needs to be considered, and move through the legal channels.

At this time, there is no indication of when markup of the bills can be expected. It does not seem to be that markup will take place at the hearing scheduled for later this week.

Michael Waxman, from the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, noted: "This hearing will provide further evidence that the UIGEA is a poorly crafted law that simply does not work." He continued to say: "We expect this hearing to provide further impetus for the House Financial Services Committee and Congress to address this issue and move forward Chairman Frank’s regulatory bill."

There are also other online gambling bills that will need to be considered, such as the Jim McDermott bill which suggests that a large part of the income raised from online gambling taxes should go toward various forms of funding for those children that are currently in foster care, as well as those that were in foster care.