Specifics on the New Bill
Online poker gamblers all over the United States have one more thing to be
thankful for with the announcement that Senator Robert Menedez’s latest poker
bill has had some success in the US Senate. Over the past two years any new
measures designed to license and regulate the online casino gambling industry
have not made it very far in the House or the Senate and the politicians have
scrambled to find a persuasive argument that will bring about legislation that
neutralizes at least some of the negative effects of the UIGEA. Pushing for the
legalization of online casino gambling has been met with severe resistance
throughout Congress and the such, but on the flip side, internet poker gamblers
can take heart that S.3616, the Internet Skill Game Licensing and Control Act is
finding some success.
The bill is centered solely on the online poker gambling industry and would not
neutralize the UIGEA’s affects on the internet casino gambling but would instead
address internet poker gambling as a entire separate game than traditional
internet gambling. The bill is “solid” according to the Chairman of the Poker
Players Alliance, and includes detailed information and regulations that have
sunk some of the previous pro-internet gambling bills. Some of the areas the
bill touches on are the taxes levied on the industry – this means that with
oversight and tight regulations in place the US government and state governments
would then get a cut of the internet poker revenues.
The bill relies on the definition of poker as a game of skill to affect the
passage of the bill and to exclude internet poker from the consideration of
poker as a part of the online casino gambling industry. The bill proposes very
tight licensing and regulatory requirements on the industry designed to
eliminate the possibility of fraud and money laundering through the industry. |