UIGEA Online Gambling Law Debacle Snowballs Offline

In the meantime, the nightmares predicted by the multitude of opponents of the online casino ban have begun to come true, only hours into the new program.

New Hampshire had already discovered that its online lottery credit card sales were being blocked by implementation of the UIGEA law against online gambling payment transactions. Now the state has found that even local stores are refusing to allow lottery sales on debit card transactions.

Experts from the American Banking Association, the Department of the Treasury, credit card companies, and Congress had predicted that, by implementing the UIGEA without defining illegal online gambling, the US would find transactions being blocked that were perfectly legal as companies erred on the side of caution. Now the law has seen less than a week since the end of the review of the permanent regulations, and outcries and red flags are rising everywhere.

According to an editorial in the Union-Leader, US Republican Senator John Sununu before losing a reelection bid said the law was too ambiguous and would end up disrupting legitimate enterprises. Sununu, among others, noted, "... risk-averse financial institutions will simply choose to block every transaction that may be interpreted or could resemble gambling, whether legal or not." 

The report says Lottery Director Rick Wisler was told by Visa and Mastercard that they "would review the policy." In the meantime, the nightmares predicted by the multitude of opponents of the online casino ban have begun to come true, only hours into the new program.

New Hampshire school fundings lose money as lottery sales are blocked, while any child who wishes to access online casinos can due to lack of regulation. Programs supposedly excepted from the online gambling transaction ban face being caught in the web, while unlicensed shady sites devise clever alternatives that escape UIGEA notice.

All the goals of libertarians, bankers, gambling patrons, child safety and consumer safety advocates, law enforcement groups guarding against money laundering and everyday people simply wanting to keep the Internet free from government censorship can all be met by legalization and regulation. The UIGEA mess is certain to only get worse until then.