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For those who missed it, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) regulations have become law. As I stated in my last post regarding this issue, the UIGEA does not make playing poker online a crime. What is does do is make it illegal for banks and other financial institutions to allow transfers to and from online cardrooms. The regulations state that all banks must comply with this law by December 1 of this year.

Although the UIGEA is not supposed to apply to lotteries, horse racing, and other legal forms of gambling, it appears that the reaction from many banks and credit card companies has been to simply flag any transaction related to gambling, legal or otherwise, and prevent such a transaction from going through. I guess it’s just not worth the banks’ time and effort to figure out which gambling transactions involve legal gambling, and which involve illegal gambling. This has already proven to be a problem in New Hampshire, where people can no longer buy lottery tickets online with credit cards. The state lottery director said this problem could end up costing the state a million dollars in revenue, much of which would’ve gone towards education spending. I’m sure that’s what Frist had in mind when he drew up the UIGEA!

Poker players have started to feel the effects as well, as it’s become harder to get deposits onto Poker Stars through a bank transfer. Expect things to get worse before they get better.

There are, fortunately, some reasonable ways this whole thing could be turned around. The two most plausible seem to be a passage of Barney Frank’s bill–the one that got through committee last fall–or a bill called The Midnight Rule Act, recently introduced by Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), which would undo all the new rules put into place in the final 90 days of the previous administration. Another option is for Congress to make use of the Congressional Review Act that I mentioned in the last post on this issue, but observers deem it very unlikely for that to happen, for whatever reason.

The upshot for us is the same. Call your representative. Tell him or her that you want to see UIGEA reversed, and online gambling legal and regulated. Urge your rep to co-sponsor Nadler’s bill, or to get Barney Frank’s bill up for a vote. Just tell them what you want, and then let them figure out how to do it. It may not happen right away, but with a new administration in power, we should be able to start reversing the trend on this issue sooner rather than later.

OK, enough legal stuff. I recently made a six-day trip to Atlantic City. In my next post, I’ll tell you all about it.

For those who haven’t heard, the Bush administration is trying to go out with a bang by making it even tougher for us to play poker online. I’m sure this action will vindicate the last eight years in the eyes of future historians (note: that was sarcasm).

I am not a legal expert, so be sure to seek additional information, and/or politely correct me in the comments if I get something wrong. But I have read a bunch of stuff about this, and (obviously) followed the issue very closely. Below is my best attempt at describing the current state of affairs.

As you know, two years ago the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed into law after Bill “Douchebag” Frist tacked it onto a port safety bill that had no chance of being voted down. The UIGEA, contrary to what many people believe, does not make playing poker online a crime. Instead, it disallows banks and other financial institutions from transferring funds to sites whose customers engage in unlawful wagering. What’s “unlawful” depends on a lot of things–first and foremost, on your state. For example, if you live in Washington state, you are committing a felony by playing a $5 Sit-N-Go online. Meanwhile, federal law is murky on the subject. At least a few very knowledgeable people will tell you that there is no federal statute prohibiting online poker. As far as I know, the federal government has never prosecuted anyone for playing online poker.

The passage of UIGEA, which didn’t make online poker playing any more or less illegal than it already was, nonetheless had practical implications. Many sites responded to the legislation by closing their doors to US customers. The law itself, however, has never really been enforced. Now, they’re trying to enforce it.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve laid out a long list of regulations that would carry out and enforce UIGEA. Banks have until December 1, 2009 to comply with these rules. The new regulations go through a 60-day review period before becoming finalized. Why is this important? Because there are 66 days before Barack Obama and the next Congress take office. The people who wanted these regulations to happen thought they had to act quickly, assuming the regulations surely would’ve been scrapped on January 20 or shortly thereafter if that were still an option. So they got the regulations finalized with a few days to spare.

Or so they thought. There’s an odd thing about that 60-day window the Bush administration had. It’s the wrong window. Thanks to the Congressional Review Act of 1996, any regulations finalized within sixty days of Congress adjourning are not considered to be finalized until January 15 of the next year. So that 60-day clock? It won’t start ticking for a while yet. This means that despite the Bush administration’s best efforts to get these regulations in at the eleventh hour, the new Congress can simply repeal them when they convene next year.

That’s the good news. The bad news is there’s no way of knowing whether the new Congress will care enough to address this matter. That’s where we poker players come in. Call your Member of Congress and contact the Obama transition team, as the Poker Players Alliance is recommending, and tell them we want these regulations repealed. If we succeed, it would be a great victory in the ongoing legal battle we’re fighting.

The ultimate goal remains to have poker legal and regulated. After all, even if we get the regulations repealed, UIGEA would still be law. We’d be vulnerable to another Congress deciding to enforce UIGEA whenever they felt like it. If, however, we had a clear-cut federal law declaring online poker legal, we’d almost certainly be completely in the clear. There have been signs that this dream could eventually become reality. But one thing at a time. Defeating the lame duck administration’s last-minute attempts to intrude on our lives is our number one priority. If you care about online poker, then please do your part.

I know I haven’t posted since the tournament–and I feel really, truly bad about it–so I wanted to share one story with you.

Very deep into the event, with the tables playing shorthanded (maybe there were 14 players left?), Erik Seidel opened on the button and a young player called him on the big blind. (The age limit for this tournament was 19, so this young player might’ve been very young indeed, but I don’t know for sure.) The flop came down ace-high with two diamonds and the young player led out with a bet. Seidel called. The turn brought a blank and the young player checked. Seidel bet, and young player called. The river brought the third diamond and young player checked again. Seidel tossed a big stack of chips into the pot, and they scattered around his area of the table and took a while to count, but they represented a big bet on Seidel’s part. The young player went into the tank for a long time and eventually called, immediately tabling a weak ace, for top pair-no kicker. Erik tabled two diamonds for the flush and raked in the pot.

As Erik stacked up the chips, the young guy said to him, “please tell me you’re sometimes floating there.”

And then Seidel: “I don’t even know what that means.”

Hah!

I’m heading to Foxwoods next week for the main event of World Poker Finals. In the meantime, remember to vote! And in case you’re unclear who to vote for, know that Barack Obama’s campaign has said that he believes internet gambling should be regulated (i.e., legal), and John McCain has said, “I haven’t thought about the issue.”

Good luck to everyone playing poker the next few days. I’ll post again soon.

I interrupt my WSOP recap to make sure everyone knows about the legislative victory for online poker that happened yesterday. After failing in its first attempt a few months back, Barney Frank’s Payments System Protection Act–a bill that severely weakens the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) passed two years ago–passed a committee vote by a count of 30-19.

Now I’m no lawyer, but the bill is written in English and my interpretation seems to be the same as the one that’s been floating around the internet. The bill basically revokes the UIGEA for everything other than sports betting (which is specifically illegal outside of Vegas), at least until the legality of other forms of gambling is made clear. In other words, until someone declares poker illegal, this bill would make it so that U.S. banks allow transfers to online poker sites.

There is a long way to go. The bill has to get debated and passed in the House and Senate, and then signed into law by the President, before any of this takes effect. The process could last years. Or, like Bill “Douchebag” Frist did with the UIGEA, a legislator could tack this bill onto another bill and get it passed and signed into law much, much sooner.

Even if the bill becomes law, there’s no way of knowing whether Party, Paradise, et al will reopen their doors to U.S. customers. And even if the bill becomes law, poker would not suddenly be seen as 100 percent legal in the eyes of the U.S. government. But getting this bill out of committee is a great start, and marks a sharp contrast from where we were two years ago, when the complete shutdown of online poker seemed a distinct possibility.

Are you excited about the development? Or do you perhaps have a different interpretation or additional information? Feel free to comment. I’ll return everyone to their regularly scheduled WSOP recap soon.