Politico has a piece up highlighting the latest details in Rep. Barney Frank's attempt to see common sense laws on the books when it comes to online gambling. So far, all of Frank's attempts at passing legislation which would nullify the UIGEA or otherwise create a new regulatory framework for online gambling websites have run into opposition, but this time around the buzz on the hill is that the bill has a much better chance.
Early last week the federal government seized $34 million in online poker room bank accounts that were used to pay players who withdrew from their individual poker accounts. This move did not achieve the government's desired result. It has failed to effect the games at either of the two poker rooms targeted, Full Tilt or Poker Stars, and both poker rooms have since resumed paying out withdrawals to players. It has also reminded people what a powerful and murky law the UIGEA really is.
The recent bank seizures, which targeted accounts managed by two companies that process payments for online poker sites such as Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker thrust the issue back into the news and renewed old questions about the clarity of the existing law.
"It was terrible idea," Frank said last week.
Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), a gaming advocate whose staff is drafting a formal response to the administration, argues the seizure "shows the inappropriate excess of government power."
There are three main opponents to online gambling regulation; social conservatives who see gambling in any form as a bad thing, the banking industry which states the law is vague and therefore too difficult to enforce, and the National Football League, which has spent millions of dollars lobbying against Frank's bills because it sees gambling as a "major outside threat". I'm not sure where Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or the thousands of other sportsbook locations around the world fit in to the NFL's plans to stop the threat from gambling on games.
Politically, being seen as "pro-gambling" could have been very damaging in the past, but it's taken such a strong libertarian, government-should-stay-out-of-my-business bend that observers say the chances are much higher that Barney Frank and the bill's co-sponsors will see regulation enacted and enforced. Frank has even seen himself become a sort of celebrity among online poker players, who see the Massachusetts Congressman as their only forceful voice in the government. While other representatives have signed on to anti-UIGEA bills, notably Ron Paul of Texas, none have been pushing as hard as Mr. Frank to get common sense legislation enacted.
Rep. Frank has been letting some of this new confidence show.
A spokesman for the Financial Services Committee said in an e-mail that the panel needs to hold a hearing on the chairman's bill before lawmakers would ever consider formal legislation. And the committee has its hands full this summer rewriting the regulatory infrastructure for the country's behemoth financial services industry.
But Frank likes his odds coming out of the flop.
"We'll get it done," he said.
It's starting to look better and better that they will in fact get it done.
