Barney Frank guided HR 6870-Payments System Protection Act of 2008 through its first step on the way to eventually (hopefully) becoming law with a 30-19 victory in the House Financial Services Committee.
Short summary - if this amendment is enacted into law, it will mean that the UIGEA only covers sports betting. Online poker and casino games will NOT be covered unless an Administrative Law Judge rules otherwise.
This is great news for the online poker community. Why? For those of you who don't know anything about the UIGEA, it is the piece of legislation that ran Party Poker, iPoker, Pacific Poker and host of other online poker rooms from the USA market. If this gets through to become law, I could see two very quick benefits:
1. Sites that moved out of the USA market in 2006 can come back. Welcome back Party, Titan, Pacific and a host of other fishy rooms. Welcome back the Party Poker jingle as one of the most popular ads on GSN and WSOP t.v. spots.
2. A poker/casino ewallet would be able to open and run without fear of prosecution. Tired of waiting 3 weeks on your Full Tilt Poker check? Epassporte could come back? Neteller maybe?
If you want to read it, here is a cut/paste of the legal jargon. My analysis is not expert analysis, but gleaned from some very knowledgeable posters on 2 plus 2 forums.
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Payments System Pro-
tection Act of 2008’’.
SEC. 2. PROHIBITION.
The Secretary of the Treasury and the Board of Gov-
ernors of the Federal Reserve System, whether acting
jointly or separately, may not propose, prescribe, or imple-
ment any regulation under subchapter IV of chapter 53
of title 31, United States Code, or otherwise give effect
to such subchapter or any such regulation, including the
proposed regulations published in the Federal Register on
October 4, 2007, except to the extent as any such regula-
tion pertains to wagering of the type that is prohibited
(as of the date of the enactment of this Act) under chapter
178 of title 28, United States Code (relating to profes-
sional and amateur sports protection) or except as pro-
vided in section 3.
SEC. 3. RULEMAKING TO IMPLEMENT SUBCHAPTER ON
PROHIBITION ON FUNDING OF UNLAWFUL
INTERNET GAMBLING AND DEFINE UNLAW-
FUL INTERNET GAMBLING.
(a) INGENERAL.—Notwithstanding section 2, the
Secretary of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System, in consultation with the At-
torney General, shall jointly develop and implement regu-
lations (which the Secretary and the Board jointly deter-
mine to be appropriate), on the record after opportunity
for agency hearing involving an administrative law judge
or similar official, under subchapter IV of chapter 53 of
title 31, United States Code, that shall include a definition
of the term ‘‘unlawful Internet gambling’’ for purposes of
such subchapter and such regulations, after conducting a
full economic impact study of the proposed regulations
under chapter 6 of title 5, United States Code (commonly
referred to as the ‘‘Regulatory Flexibility Act’’).
(b) COORDINATIONWITHPROHIBITION.—Upon the
effective date of final regulations under subsection (a),
section 2 shall cease to apply.
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