270 Day Deadline For UIGEA Regulations Tomorrow

When President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), attached to a Port Security Bill, in October of 2006, a 270 deadline was set forth to write up the regulations of the UIGEA. That deadline will be up tomorrow, July 10, 2007.

The regulations are to be written up by the Secretary of the Federal Reserve System, in consult with the US Attorney General. It remains to be seen whether these regulations will meet their deadline as the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez has been experiencing several other issues he may consider more important at this time - like possibly losing his job over the alleged unconstitutional firing of several democratic government officials.

Online gambling operators must be feeling the nervous heat of the impending deadline, knowing the intended regulations to be set forth which will criminalize online gambling activities for US citizens. When such activities occur, at fault will be the player, the monetary transaction facilitator and the provider.

In recent times, we've seen several arrests made in the US concerning online gambling. In March, founder of BetonSports Plc, Gary Kaplan, was arrested in the Dominican Republic and extradited to St. Louis on charges of violating the Interstate Wire Act of 1961. British Chairman of Sportingbet Plc, Peter Dicks was taken into custody at JFK airport in New York on charges of "offenses affecting general morality".

Leslie Bryant, head of the Cyber Crime Fraud Unit of the FBI, believes gambling operators will take the brunt of the UIGEA fallout. "We’re going after the people making the money, the owners of these virtual casinos, gaming rooms, and off-track betting parlors." As far as US players are concerned, Bryant commented, "Even if you don’t get caught gambling, you could well lose the money you have in an online gaming account if the company faces charges... the U.S. government seizes assets in these cases whenever possible."

Currently, hundreds of online gambling operations continue to provide their services to US players. It will be interesting to see what changes, if any, are made by these operators come tomorrow - and if the UIGEA regulations meet their July 10th deadline.