Home / Poker News March 2009 / Circumstances aligning nicely for a possible UIGEA repeal
Circumstances aligning nicely for a possible UIGEA repeal
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2009-03-05 09:06
Various political forces, organizations and interests are slowly but surely gathering behind the efforts to have the infamous 2006 UIGEA repealed, sooner than most experts would’ve thought possible.
The anti-UIGEA forces are definitely gathering momentum, using the circumstances created by economic downturn as well as by the political change taking place in Washington to their advantage.
Massachusetts Rep Barney Frank has announced in February that he would introduce another bill similar to his IGREA sometime in March. The issue of taxing online poker and gambling has come up in various political group meetings, and several judges all over the nation have ruled poker a game of skill in various cases this year.
One of the most recent developments in the matter saw accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers conduct a study regarding the amount of money that the federal treasury would gain from a legalized and fully regulated internet gambling industry. The latest figures show that the federal budget would pocket around $52 billion in a ten-year period in funds resulting from the industry’s operation on US soil.
The interesting thing is, PricewaterhouseCoopers had conducted another similar study last year, that time in support of the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2008 introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott. The number resulting from that study was 42.8 billion, significantly lower than the current result.
According to the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, the new numbers reflect an online gambling industry growth in the US, a growth which doesn’t just underline the inefficiency of the UIGEA but makes it obvious that the situation calls for some sort of efficient government control.
Although Barney Frank’s first attempt at having the UIGEA overturned was met with failure, the new economic climate – with the government desperately looking for new sources of revenue – may just be the right one to push an IGREA like piece of legislation through.
The only question that remains for those in the online poker industry is: since poker has been declared a game of skill so many times by various authorities, should it ever be taken under the same umbrella with online gambling when it comes to the UIGEA?
