Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will review a bill, H.R. 5767, that would block the implementation of UIGEA regulations. In order to get this bill out of Committee on onto the House Floor, we need your help. We need you to contact the committee and express your support for H.R. 5767, as well as the King amendment which will refine the bill language. PPA strongly supports H.R. 5767 and the King amendment, but this important bill and amendment won’t pass without your help! (more…)

excerpt:

A United States bill targeting the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is scheduled to be amended by the House Financial Services Committee next Tuesday, a process which has already drawn criticism from professional sports leagues and religious conservatives.

(more…)

excerpt:

Two more congressmen signed on as cosponsors to H.R. 5767, a bill to stop the implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, this week.

On Thursday, Rep. Neil Abercrombie D-Hawaii and Rep. Stephen Lynch D-Mass. added their support to the bill, which was introduced April 10 by Rep. Barney Frank D-Mass. and Sen. Ron Paul R-Texas.

(more…)

excerpt:

HR 5767, the bill introduced by Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul on April 11 that seeks a moratorium on the implementation and enforcement of the UIGEA (see previous Online-Casinos.com/InfoPowa reports), has moved to “mark-up” stage in the House Financial Services Committee where amendments can be suggested before the Bill goes before the House of Representatives.

(more…)

excerpt:

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) is the first step in card players and gambling enthusiasts realizing the strength of their political potential, and one of the initial exercises of this power will be seen in the upcoming Presidential election.

To that end, Rich Muny of the PPA has attempted to narrow down the position of the candidates, and grade them accordingly.

(more…)

excerpt:

In the United States, gambling issues drew upwards of $6.98 million in lobbyist spending in the first quarter of 2008.

But, narrowing the field to Internet gambling issues, gaming interests spent almost as much in the first three months of 2008 lobbying Congress as they did in the last six months of 2007.

(more…)

excerpt:

Sen. Ted Stevens plays in his native Alaska’s fishing camps.

Rep. Charlie Rangel deals with his buddies from the block back in New York.

Rep. Joe Barton heads north from Dallas on I-35 to Oklahoma’s Indian reservations.

Rep. Duncan Hunter runs nickel/dime/quarter games on Capitol Hill.

And long before he launched his bid for the White House, then-Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama dealt in lawmakers and lobbyists during the long legislative sessions in Springfield.

(more…)

excerpt:

Antigua and Barbuda may be only days away from effecting a settlement with the United States on the internet gambling trade dispute.

This was the view expressed by Minister of Finance and the Economy Dr. Errol Cort, who was optimistic about an early end to the dispute after a series of meetings with US officials last week.

(more…)

excerpt:

Almost one year ago Ed Leyden and Joe Brennan made noise at the GIGSE conference when they announced the formation of iMEGA, a trade group formed to protect freedom of the internet. While their larger goal was to ensure that basic freedoms set out in the constitution were not infringed on just because they took place on the internet, their more immediate concern was to somehow repeal the UIGEA, which Joe Brennan called “an unjust law that was cynically crafted to provide red meat for social conservatives for the 2006 mid term elections”. The group saw the UIGEA as the start of a slippery slope that would allow Congress to pass other laws which would curtail internet growth under the guise of national security. The group may have been correct.
(more…)

excerpt:

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) is typical of Republican leadership efforts to legislate morality. The GOP leadership embraced the power of the federal government to tell Americans what to do in their own homes with their own money. The GOP leadership also embraced UIGEA’s deputizing of banks to enforce the law, as if America’s banks were an unpaid arm of the Department of Justice.
(more…)