iMEGA Chairman Says UIGEA Will Be Delayed

There is no official word from the powers that be in Washington D.C. at this time, but Interactive Media and Gaming Association (iMEGA) Joe Brennan says an announcement that full enacting of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) is going to be delayed six months.

Sources say the official announcement will come on Black Friday, but Brennan spoke with several poker media outlets yesterday to break the news. The supposed delay comes on the heels of several moves by various government officials to delay the December 1st enforcement date for banks and other financial institutions to be in full compliance with the regulations set forth in the UIGEA. Earlier this year, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) announced plans for two House resolutions: one sought to repeal the UIGEA and put a regulatory body in place to license online gaming sites and the other simply requested that the enforcement of the UIGEA be delayed one year. The former bill has 63 co-sponsors while the latter drummed up 53 and both are set to be marked up in a House Financial Services Committee Meeting next week on December 3rd. Should Brennan be correct that that the US Treasury is going to delay the act’s enforcement for six months, that gives Frank and other online gaming supporters more time to argue their case. Even those who strongly oppose regulated online gambling found the December 1st UIGEA enforcement date to be problematic though. All six Congressmen from the state of Kentucky authored a letter to US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geitner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on behalf of the horseracing industry and their constituents supporting some sort of delay. The horse racing industry has long opposed online gaming sites, but when transactions related to race bets were being held up by banks, even they found themselves on the same side as online gambling supporters. Others who authored similar letters included the Poker Players Alliance, the American Greyhound Track Operators Association and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. The letters were not all in favor of a delay though, as Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) and Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) both presented arguments to uphold the December 1st deadline. Should the delay go into effect, the UIGEA would likely not be fully enforced until June 1st, 2010 and Bluff Magazine reported on their website that there is potential for further delays should the details of the law not be fully ironed out during that six month period. While this may not be a repeal of the law, it is a huge step in the right direction for online gambling supporters who were beginning to feel some serious pressure with the looming December 1st enforcement date.