When the United States Senate passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act at the 11th hour last fall by unanimous consent, the Congressional body had little knowledge of the issue itself. Attached as a rider to the Safe Port Act, the UIGEA ushered in a climate of turmoil and uncertainty in the online gambling world. With the proposed regulations released in October, the Poker Players Alliance is seeking your input as part of a federally-mandated comment period.

PPA Executive Director John Pappas explains the existence of a comment period: “This is part of the democratic process in which we operate. The Federal Government can impose rules and regulations, but they must do so in a way that allows the American public to comment on them. When they introduced the proposed UIGEA regulations in early October, there were a number of problems. What we’ve been doing is encouraging PPA members and poker players everywhere to write to the Federal Government and point out the issues with their regulation.”

So what are the shortcomings with the UIGEA regulations? Here are five flaws taken from the PPA’s website:

1. The proposed regulations should be modified to clarify that they don’t cover games predominantly determined by skill, such as poker, bridge, mahjong and backgammon. Section 5362(1)(a) of UIGEA defines a bet or wager as “the staking or risking by any person of something of value upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game subject to chance,…” “Subject to chance” can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but in a gambling context it should reasonably be taken to mean games like roulette or slots where players bet against “the house” and success is determined by chance. Poker players compete, not against the house, but against each other, and the success of a player over any significant time interval is determined by that players’ skill.

2. The regulators must define what is and isn’t “unlawful Internet gambling.” The federal and state laws governing Internet gambling are very ambiguous — nearly all of them were written before the advent of the Internet, and it is not clear how they apply to Internet gaming. In the proposed rule, the regulators emphasize that it is not their intention to clarify this question, because to do so would require them to examine the laws of every state with respect to every gaming modality. Yet that is exactly what they are requiring every bank and payment system to do individually.

3. The regulators should refrain from implementing the regulations until the U.S. resolves its international trade disputes. The World Trade Organization has found the U.S. to be out of compliance with its obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services because of its attempts at prohibiting Internet gambling. This is likely to cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars in lost market share and export opportunities. The U.S. government is in negotiations with its trading partners over this matter. Inasmuch as these regulations arguably make that situation worse, the regulators should hold off on finalizing the regulations until the U.S. can resolve its international trade obligations.

4. The proposed regulations should not infringe on personal privacy. UIGEA deputizes banks and payment systems and turns them into the Internet morality police. These regulations should not compel banks to scrutinize the private transactions of individual poker players and others. To do so is hostile to the personal and financial privacy of every American with a credit card or checking account.

5. The UIGEA and the enforcing regulations should not apply to Internet poker nationwide. Federal case law has consistently held that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting and very few states have any laws against Internet poker. These regulations should be clear to only block those transactions which are in fact against the law. Games of skill which are not outlawed under current federal law – such as poker, chess, bridge and majong — should be exempt from the UIGEA and the regulations.

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Recovered from the Poker Players Alliance archive index. This is the archived item as preserved.