UIGEA Deadline To Be Pushed 6 Months: Poker Community Takes Breath Of Relief

Big BIG news in pokerville today, as it looks like the U.S. Treasury Department is going to delay the implementation of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act for 6 months. This is a huge win for the poker world – albeit just one battle in a war still waging.

The UIGEA, which makes it illegal for offshore-based online poker and other online gambling sites (which is most of them) to accept deposits from U.S. residents. So in essence, the UIGEA is what will enforce the fact that online poker and online gambling are supposed to be illegal for U.S. players to enjoy. Of course, complying with the strict regulations required by the UIGEA would understandably take the poker sites some time to coordinate. They have to set up their cashiers and payment processing relationships to somehow block U.S. players (and more, U.S. players pretending not to be from the U.S.). Enforcement of the UIGEA was supposed to be December 1, 2009.

In the meantime, Rep. Barney Frank and others are trying to push multiple laws through that would federally legalize (and regulate and tax) online gambling, including online poker. But as we all know, getting something through Congress takes a lot of time too.

So in a wise move to save itself a lot of extra work and trouble (the benefits to we the poker community are probably lucky side effects) the Treasury Department looks like it’s going to decide to wait 6 months to see what happens with these bills before starting to crack down the whip.