The Online Gambling Regulatory Bill being proposed by Rep. Barney Frank is heating up in the US Congress. The co-sponsors of the bill are mounting and have reach 63 as of December 4. Because of proofs that regulating online gambling will be beneficial to the US gaming population, soon it is expected that more co-sponsors will surface.
In a statement during the hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Parry Aftab, Executive Director of WiredSafety said that US consumer are currently unprotected by the attempt of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to ban online gaming. The organization where Mr. Aftab is the Executive Director is an organization dedicated to protect internet users from fraud, cyber harassment and child exposure to inappropriate sites.
While the ban is still in place, there is still significant number of US consumers, young players, in particular gamble online at least once a week. In a survey, which Mr. Aftab showed proves that about 300,000 US young gambles online once a week and this numbers doubles in a month’s time. Who is protecting this young people and who monitors where activities? Nobody knows.
Without regulations that will protect these US players, underage gambling, addictive gambling, fraud, collusion, malware and malicious code, privacy and data protection, criminal involvement, disputes and online security threat will continue to jeopardize the American gamers.
In addition, if regulations will be passed, it will create a technology to allow safe online gaming for US Players. While the UIGEA is still being enforced in the US soil, consumers are forced to take advantage of offshore sites which US courts will not be able to prosecute in case of fraud.
Likewise, legalizing and regulating internet poker gaming will help the government secure millions of dollars from internet gaming sites in terms of taxes. They will therefore afford to develop ways to monitor and protect consumers playing online.
Furthermore, the government will be able to set parameters and systems in monitoring online gaming activities. Underage gambling and addictive gambling may be controlled.
While there is no foolproof system that will ensure 100% protection of internet poker players, having a regulatory body and ways to monitor activities online will lessen risk for the US consumers.
Likewise, because it is unclear in UIGEA which among the online gaming activities are illegal and which once are not, all online betting activities suffer. In one complaint, horse race betting which is believed to be exempted from UIGEA is suffering from this bill as well.
It is therefore necessary that parameters are set, regulatory systems be in place and eradicate the ill effects of UIGEA.
The next few months are sure to be important to many Americans who would like to distress by playing poker online.
You surely know that when poker players want to enjoy the game, they will need to travel to brick and mortar casinos; this is quite costly for them.
On the other hand, those that have resorted in playing in offshore run online poker sites are however being able to play but are unprotected by the US government.
The 63 co-sponsors of the bill to regulate internet gaming will be very important especially that June 1, 2010 is not too far from now.
Let us cross our fingers and hope for the best.
