UIGEA Having Little Impact on American Online Poker

 The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act – better known as UIGEA – has now been in effect for about a month. Designed to cut the flow of funds to and from online gambling sites, UIGEA was designed to make it difficult for players from the United States to fund online casino and poker accounts by restricting banks from transferring funds to online gaming companies. However, early indications seem to suggest that there has been little – if any – impact on Americans looking to play poker online.

The most obvious effect of UIGEA has been the near-total blocking of credit card deposits onto online casinos and poker rooms from the United States. However, online gambling outfits were prepared, and have gone out of their way to offer new and innovative deposit methods designed to get around the new regulations.

It has been reported that the industry hardest hit has actually been online horse racing; although UIGEA specifically singled out horse racing for an exemption, many credit card companies are now preventing deposits to their sites as well. Because of the exemption, many of these sites were not prepared with backup options for deposits.

According to the Poker Players Alliance, an American interest group promoting the rights of poker players, there has been no increase in the level of complaints by American poker players in regards to depositing money into online poker accounts.

"We’ve seen very little impact on the ability of Americans to play poker on the Internet," said PPA executive director John Pappas. “If our members have problems they e-mail us, and we haven’t really seen an uptick of complaints from our membership.

UIGEA was passed by the United States Congress in 2006, when the online gambling provisions were attached to the SAFE Port Act, a bill covering port security.  In response, most online poker rooms that were publically traded chose to stop accepting players from the United States, while many other sites confirmed their ongoing commitment to serving American poker players. Implementation of UIGEA was delayed by a bill introduced by Congressman Barney Frank, who has also proposed legislation that would overturn many provisions of the act.