Year Ends With Good News & Bad For Legal US Online Poker

So the online poker community has had a few good scores as the year closes out, with things looking promising for legal U.S. online poker – from one angle, at least. From another, however, the situation looks bleaker.

First a recap of the good news: Congress has pushed the start of enforcement under the oppressive UIGEA back by six months while it takes more time to consider rep. Barney Frank and friends’ bundle of proposed legislation to make it possible for sites to run legal online poker in the US. And the support behind Frank and these bills is growing by leaps and bounds every day.

Now the bad news: the FBI issued a report revealing its findings on the subject of online poker, and has declared that it is too easy to cheat at online poker, with the technology existing for a collusion of just 2 or 3 online poker players to swindle a whole bunch of money from unsuspecting players – a conclusion which the leader of online poker’s staunch opposition in Congress, rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama was none too quick to point out. The report, which happened to be put together at Bachus’s request, in answer to 6 specific questions he’d asked, also asserts that online poker is too open to money laundering and that age verification would be too hard to ensure.

But still, to go by Frank’s hastily scheduled preliminary hearing on the issue – specifically one of the bills in question: H.R. 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act – last Thursday, things are looking more positive for legal US online poker than negative.