PokerStars Believes They Comply with US Law

PokerStars responded to questions regarding the legality of their operations in the United States this week, stating that to the best of their knowledge, they have behaved lawfully in the US market. These issues came to the forefront as a provision was added to legislation working through the United States House of Representatives that would bar companies that had previously broken state or federal gambling laws from entering a future regulated market.

The bill, called the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267), would create a regulated market that would allow companies to acquire licenses to operate online poker rooms in the United States. Currently, there is no regulatory framework for online poker in the USA. Though no laws have been written to explicitly ban online poker, many poker rooms pulled out of the American market after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). That legislation made it illegal for US banks to process financial transactions with online gambling sites.

H.R. 2267 recently passed its first hurdle on the way to becoming law by being passed by the House Financial Services Committee. While many have speculated that the new provision in H.R. 2267 would make it unlikely for rooms such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to receive licenses, PokerStars released a statement offering a different view.

“As reflected in legal opinions provided to PokerStars, its activities in the US are, and at all times have been, lawful,” the statement said, adding that the new law would not “adversely affect the availability of a license for a respected operator such as PokerStars.”

The Poker Player Alliance, an interest group that lobbies on behalf of poker players in the United States, agreed with PokerStars. They stated that “nothing in the Committee-passed legislation precludes lawful Internet poker-only operators whom US players know and trust today from the opportunity to operate under a regulated system.”

The possibility of a regulated poker market in the United States follows similar moves in the last few months by other major nations. Both France and Italy have recently moved to a licensing model that allows online poker and other online gambling, but only by approved and licensed operators. PokerStars has been successful in obtaining licenses from both nations.