Poker Players Alliance Tries Last Ditch Effort To Delay UIGEA

On December 1, 2009 the dreaded UIGEA – that’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (emphasis on the word enforcement – goes into affect. Actually, it’s the deadline for online poker and other internet gambling sites to comply with the UIGEA’s rules (essentially – no offshore HQ’d sites can serve U.S. players). December 1. At least, that’s when the deadline is sheduled to be. But the oppressive bill’s fiercest opponents throughout this ordeal, the Poker Player’s Alliance, is taking one last stab at defeating the UIGEA before its damage really starts being wreaked. And that stab is to delay the deadline.

The PPA’s last effort was to stop enforcement of the UIGEA after the deadline altogether. When that failed, this became their last ditch effort to keep U.S. online poker legal.

The PPA delivered a petition to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner (listed as an “interest group”) citing the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as cause to push the December 1, 2009 deadline up by one year.

In the petition is the following explanation: that enforcing the 21/1/09 deadline places “an unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis.” In particular, this refers to the payment processors who will, as of that date, have to start blocking transactions from U.S. players, and that’s a tricky bit of technology to ask any company to put together on the fly. Hopefully Tim and friends will see the logic in this.

Interestingly, the Secretary has more time to reply to the PPA petition than is left before the deadline, with 180 days to review the request. It’ll be interesting to see how this hand plays out. All the way to the river, no doubt.