Don't Waste Time on Online Poker Lawmakers tell Treasury

Don't Waste Time on Online Poker Lawmakers tell Treasury
Fri, Apr 25th, 2008 @ 12:00am

A bipartisan group of House Financial Services Committee members have warned U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve officials not to waste any more time trying to implement a ban on online poker and online gambling.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the panel, along with Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Pete King (R-N.Y.), sent a letter Tuesday to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke requesting them not to waste any more time trying to implement the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), because the house financial services committee hearing on 2 April "made it clear that the regulations are unworkable.".

As reported in Tuesday's edition of The Hill, which reports on legislative issues in Washington, DC, the letter says, "The regulations, like the underlying legislation, fail to define the term 'unlawful internet gambling', leaving it to each financial institution to reconcile conflicting state and federal laws, court decisions and inconsistent Department of Justice interpretations when determining whether to process a transaction."

The letter adds that at least some of the information would be "likely unavailable to banks because customers or financial institutions in foreign jurisdictions will likely be unwilling or unable to provide it."

"We believe it would be imprudent for you to devote additional agency resources to this Sisyphean task, especially as we intend to vigorously pursue legislation to prevent the implementation of these regulations," members said in the letter.

Referring to the legislation that Frank and Paul introduced to prohibit the implementation of the law's regulations, the letter concludes by urging readers to co-sponsor the prevention of UIGEA regulation implementation.

The letter was sent the same day that the Poker Players Alliance announced that its membership had reached 1 million. The group also announced the launch of a voter registration program and a political action committee.

Article originally published by The Hill authored by Susan Crabtree.