RSSSenate Cracks Down on Net Gambling
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published October 2, 2006, 3:43 PM
In a move engineered by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R - Tenn.), the United States Senate on Saturday passed legislation, by a voice vote, that ostensibly would tighten security restrictions on cargo shipments from overseas. But attached to the tail end of this bill was language from an earlier House bill that was going nowhere since last July, which effectively makes it illegal for a bank or other institution to transfer funds to organizations that are involved in so-called "unlawful Internet gambling."
Although the measure does not render Internet gambling in the U.S. unlawful, it may as well have, since the new language makes it tremendously more difficult, if not impossible, for banks to process online gambling transactions even when they may be permitted.
The bill whose language was grafted onto the SAFE Ports Act, last known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling and Prohibition Act, did spell out certain exceptions for legal online gambling, including between states where gambling was legalized, within individual states or tribal territories, as well as certain other categories such as some horse racing wagers.
Earlier, President Bush indicated he would be willing to sign the gambling act into law, were he to receive it on his desk. Instead, the President will find it tucked beneath anti-terrorism and security legislation, which he also has indicated he supports.
"No person engaged in the business of betting or wagering," reads the language of the Act, "may knowingly accept, in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling: credit...an electronic funds transfer...any check [or] draft...[or] the proceeds of any other form of financial transaction."
Within a 270-day period, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has been instructed to work out a plan with financial institutions to implement an electronic regulatory system that will block funds transfers that fall under new federal restrictions.
The very notion that such a system will be created has resulted in the shutdown, within hours, of U.S. branches of Internet gambling operations, a great many of them based in the UK. The Times of London reported today that PartyGaming, Sportingbet, World Gaming, and 888 Holdings are among the British companies that saw giant chunks of their capital value erased from the books: as much as 3 billion pounds ($5.66 billion USD) ceasing to exist, and stock value plummeting as much as 75%.
PartyGaming today issued this statement: "After taking extensive legal advice, the Board of PartyGaming Plc has concluded that the new legislation, if signed into law, will make it practically impossible to provide US residents with access to its real money poker and other real money gaming sites. As a result of this development, the Board of PartyGaming has determined that if the President signs the Act into law, the Company will suspend all real money gaming business with US residents, and such suspension will continue indefinitely, subject to clarification of the interpretation and enforcement of US law and the impact on financial institutions of this and other related legislation." Free games access, and gambling access to non-US customers, will remain unaffected.
In Montreal, Optimal Group, which co-owns an online payment processing service, saw its share value plunge today a full 31%, to $8.08 CAN.
Sen. Frist was quoted over the weekend as saying, "Although we can't monitor every online gambler or regulate offshore gambling, we can police the financial institutions that disregard our laws."
A December 2002 Government Accountability Office report looked into the possibility of whether Internet gambling operations could effectively be used as fronts for money laundering. "Law enforcement officials...cited several characteristics of Internet gambling that they believed made it vulnerable to money laundering," the report reads, "including the volume, speed, and international reach of Internet transactions and the offshore locations of Internet gambling sites. In their view, these characteristics promoted a high level of anonymity and gave rise to complex jurisdictional issues." The report made no recommendations, but certainly raised the specter of possible complicity.
"It was a sad night last night for all poker players," a spokesperson for the gambling advocacy group KeepTheFreedom.org was quoted as saying. "We feel the best course of action is to now concentrate on including a carve-out for skill based games or poker as a whole from the current legislation... We will be adapting our website appropriately to help aid in this process, making it clean and clear cut, so that poker players internationally can unite and contribute to the effort to fight for our poker freedom."
I'm surprised they have time to chase after gambling. I thought they were too busy soliciting gay sex from underage pages.
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|I hope Frist becomes unemployed soon as well. It is clear the people want the CHOICE to play poker online, not to have Frist make that CHOICE for them.
As for the kiddies with mommy's credit card, that is an issue for parenting.
What will be Frists next effort? Maybe there are too many people drinking too much and we all need to be wearing alcohol monitors to signal the local PD when we havent been within Frists limitations. Maybe we should have cigarette emission detectors surgically planted near our olfactory senses so good guy Frisk can have the surgeon general protect us from ourselves.
Frisk needs to go.
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|No worries Grandma, he is retiring after this term. Instead of spouting off a bunch of bulls***e, do some research first. And also, check your spelling when you post 'Frisk'.
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|Yes gentleman senator Frist more than likely will soon make me unemployed, i hope when im out of a job and i cant find another one in Antigua and i choose to become an illegal alien in Your country you will not be mad, thanks a lot republicans
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|Go ahead, vote republican you morons. See what happened to this once great country that is no more?
EVERYONE THAT VOTED REPUBLICAN HAS ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME.
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|The Goverment should protect us,
from thieves and despots, not from ourselves.
Some people can't handle freedom, it's sad but you can't be free to succeed unless you are also free to foul up.
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|But what would the Christian right do all day if they couldn't tell people what to do?!
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|Finally, Jon Kyl, shill for the gambling industry, gets his way. Even then, they had to hide it in a "security" bill to get enough votes to make it look like there was good support for yet another invasion of the public's liberty. So, you can't gamble with your own money, but you can still suck on cancer sticks??? Ain't righteous" hypocrisy great?
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|John Kyl is a dork! Maybe one day he will wake up and find out that a 50 thousand watt Las Vegas radio station runs 1-800-xxxx ads for the sports betting parlors across Lake Mead and the state line. The suckers, who elected this moron call call for free, give a credit card number and bet on the ball games of their choice. And yes this is illegal in Arizona.
Try to enforce this stupid law! Indian tribal casinos don't take bets on games. You wanna bet the farm that most of those corrupt politicians do the same thing with their damned football and baseball teams?
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|The problem is the US government wont get a piece of this massive online gambling phenom. It is really hard for them to keep track for tax purposes, also it possses many problems with other countries.
There are opinions that you can transfer money through these gambling sites not to mention criminal activities that are hard to track and complicated to investiage since it is international.
Another opinion is that kids can gamble with their parent's credit cards. Before you laugh, a few news stations including 20/20 have done shows on this where they gave a kid a credit card and asked them to try to find sites for online gambling and they succeeded.
Simply it has to do with money that the government cant touch or cant keep tab on. These politicians are using relgious reasons and moral reasons to jusify it, however.
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|I am tired of these right wing fundamentalist so-called Christian wacko's imposing their belief system in Taliban like fashion on the rest of us.
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|Id love to know what your smoking.. it passed 317-93 in the house and 71-28 in the Senate. Your really trying too hard to make this a republican / Right wing issue. Even if the democrats got all the seats they expect this november (and took over both houses) - it still would have passed by a very very healthy margin. Wake up and stop putting the blame on the "Christian Boogyman".
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|When you're done chewin' on peyote, you might want to take a look at the fact that they hid this waste of legislation into a "security" bill so they could get the votes needed. I'll bet you believe you can win at Keno, too, huh?
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|if you want pot, porn, gambling, free music, whatever, there are ways to get it and this is no different..
This is a way for someone else to get rich, get creative, not ticked off!!
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|Typical conservatism — tax everything and what they can't, they ban as drumcat below aptly noted. Even scarier is the steady conservative republican encroachment on the computer and internet, from the DMCA, DRM schemes, spying to use your bank and medical records against you, to hating net neutrality. These are the same folks who repeatedly fined Howard Stern for vishnu's sake! They hate american values and will do everything they can legislatively to outlaw anything you want to enjoy. Maybe we should outlaw what they do with their pages.
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|That fa&&ot congressman broke his own laws. He might wery well be prosecuted for sending X rated AOL Instant Messages across state lines using the screen name MAF54. The predator who helped create that nation-wide data base of child molesters will end up in it. He must pose for a mugshot and register his home address with police; so everybody knows where to find a dirty old man...
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|If the feds can't tax it, they'll outlaw it.
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|How about letting the people decide for themselves if they want to gambling on the Internet? What if they sneak in an unrelated bill saying a new national speed limit is now 22 miles per hour?
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|Who will take on a bet that this won't last :-)
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|Frist is now entering into the liberal's world of government intrusion into our lives and legislating morality. Gambling regulation is one thing...this is a horse of a different color. Piggy backing the bill is a deception, designed to take it out of view of the general public.
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|I'm VERY confused by this statement - liberals in general do NOT want government interfering in our private lives - that's why liberals are pro-choice rather than pro-life (say), the idea being to leave it up to individuals to decide what they want to do. Liberals support MORE civil liberties, privacy, they're opposed to things like wire tapping, etc, etc.,
Liberals to not want to legislate morality - they've figured out that sensible people can do that themselves within their family live, religious life if applicable, etc....
So your statement about the "liberal's world of government intrusion into our lives" is quite bizarre.
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|LMAO! You're a blind idiot!
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|Wow, I'd say that statement needs to be clarified for us all; "Liberal's world of government intrusion". That's got Orwellian, everything's the opposite speech, written all over it!
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|Except when it cpomes to them having access to your money. The Dianne Feinstein types are just as bad with intruding into your private.
She wants the guns. Republicans control your sex life. And both want your money for their pet causes...
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|It's about time something was done to curtail these gambling sites, they have had it too good, too long. Real life gambling has to be regulated and so should the online version.
I don't see the attraction myself, why not play for imaginary money, you're never going to strick it rich this way. Remember the golden rule: The House _Always_ wins...
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|I like how they piggybacked it on a "port security" bill.
Finally! Something is being done about the evils of... uh... online gambling?
I don't understand the motivation behind such legislation.
PS: Betanews, in articles such as these, could you provide links to the actual pieces of legislation in question?
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|The motivation is, the US Government isn't seeing a dime from these companies, therefore they are evil and must be killed.
I personally think this is a joke, if people want to gamble, let them whether it be in the US or somewhere else.
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|and the local casinos are not getting a dime in this too.
i agreed, this is full of craps.
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