PPA delaying UIGEA
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement act was going to be implemented on January 19, 2009. The poker player’s alliance is trying its hard to delay the implementation date of this act. The alliance of poker players is really working out and their tactics to make the act to the later date are working very well. The PPA interest group also sent the petition to U.S treasury secretary Timothy Geithner in which they have requested the extension of one year to the December deadline under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The PPA is not at all afraid and it has mentioned very strict points in the petition. For example they mentioned a warning in the petition that the enforcing statute will put unreasonable burden on regulators at the time of recession or economic crisis. The main point which the PPA tried to clarify in the warning is about the banks which will no more be allowed to transfer the money to online gambling websites and it can really hurt the economy.
Although we have seen very less incidents in which the bank accounts of the processing companies which used to transfer the money to online poker sites were ceased. It is a very crucial time for the U.S online poker players because either it is going to be a fortune for them or they are going to lose their business. Everyone is waiting for the reply of the U.S treasury secretary. It is said that he will soon reply to the petition but he has a total of 180 days before he must reply to the petition. Everyone is getting impatient about the reply because it is totally unexpected and no one can make any assumption about the secretary’s reply.
U.S is taking this act very seriously. The reason for the strict laws on online poker sites is that playing online poker is totally unsecure, full of bots, hacking, money laundering etc. You never know whether a real person is playing or it is just a computer bot. The city or town casinos are safe and there is simply no possibility of cheating. That is the main reason why most of countries are willing to completely ban the online poker sites.
