Will UIGEA Interfere with Legal Intrastate Online Gambling?
Intrastate online gambling has a good chance of being passed before the federal government gets to the issue of considering the repeal of the UIGEA. Even though the law against online casino payment transactions specifically exempts intrastate actions, there is more than adequate reason to wonder if the bill will still create problems for state licensed Internet gambling.
States are totally within the rights extended them in the UIGEA to regulate online gambling within borders. California is already preparing a bill to license online poker rooms, and other Internet gaming legislation is in various stages in Texas, New York, Florida, and New Jersey, among others.
Bot other legal state gaming ventures have accidentally been fouled by the UIGEA. Both Vermont and North Dakota have had credit card lottery sales blocked on the Internet by banks concerned with UIGEA vagueness.
Like intrastate online casinos, state lotteries are expressly allowed in the UIGEA language. But because illegal online gambling is undefined in the law, banks and credit companies are forced to decide what is legal. In cases like the lotteries, all transactions coded as gambling are denied.
If California, New Jersey, and other states do institute systems for regulating Internet casinos, the problematic nature of the UIGEA will be more of an issue than ever. Further disruption of legal operations may be the final blow in the iMEGA court case against the UIGEA, if the Department of Justice concedes that ongoing events are relevant in reviewing the bill.
