UIGEA<---------What A Pile of Shit!!!!

[NeilZelkin]

[FONT=Georgia]I wrote this for a class I am taking. Enjoy.



Background: At the start of the 21sr Century, the internet was a rapidly growing entity that Governments worldwide struggled with containing. Many proponents argued in fact that the internet needed no containing. While that might be the extreme end of the argument, the fact remained that in the early 2000?s, the United States of America of was in the midst of a healthy political debate on the how, who?and why our government should police the internet in conjunction with the people?s right to use it.

The United States had already tried once to legislate morality with passage the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and the National Prohibition Act of 1919, 27 U.S.C. ? 40 et seq. (repealed 1933). This of course was our nation?s failed attempt at outlawing alcohol. Over the ensuing years, it was proven that the people?s right to have a drink was stronger than any law passed by any legislator. Organized crime, charged with filling the void left when alcohol became illegal, happily created a thriving black market to provide a thirsty public with what they felt was their right as adults to have a drink. Of course, as with any black market comes the attendant violence and other unwanted outcrops of criminality. Realizing its mistake 13 years later Congress ended prohibition with the passage of the 21st Amendment repealing 27 U.S.C. ? 40 et seq.

In the early 2000s, Congress again found itself in the unique position to legislate morality. However, this time, instead of focusing its attention on alcohol, it placed its gaze squarely upon the internet, the newest and by far the biggest game changer to come around our planet in a long, long time. Here was this platform that had basically come in out of nowhere and turned everything as we had come to know it upside down. Emails, web site, E-commerce, streaming video, YouTube, Google, and the like were all non-existent a decade earlier, yet, here they were, and it was obvious that the internet had changed the way we do things forever.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention one of the internet?s most popular and profitable arena?s at the turn of the century was gambling. Ever since Adam bet, Eve on who would take the first bite of the forbidden fruit humankind has been hardwired with the desire gamble. Since this is not a paper on psychology but one on law, I will not go into the particulars but trust me each one of our brains is stamped with a button that says, ?Bet!? Some just push that button a lot more than others do.

With each passing year, websites that catered to gambling proliferated. In May of 1998, there were approximately 90 on-line casinos, 39 lotteries, 8 bingo games, and 53 sports books. One year later, there are over 250 on-line casinos, 64 lotteries, 20 bingo games, and 139 sportsbooks providing gambling over the Internet. Sebastian Sinclair, a gambling industry analyst for Christiansen/Cummings Associates, estimates that Internet gambling revenues were $651 million for 1998, more than double the estimated $300 million from the previous year The National Gambling Impact Study of 1999, Ch. 2 p. 15 (1999).

People obviously enjoyed gambling on the internet. Those numbers clearly illustrate that. However, at the time the internet?s growth had been so explosive it went along virtually unregulated and this caused the politician?s in the United States of America to play catch up and by doing so they passed legislation, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, 31 U.S.C. 5361 et seq. (2006) (hereinafter ?UIGEA?) that for all intense and purposes outlawed, without much thought, something adults in this country thought they had a right to do with their own hard earned money, gamble.

Statutes:
Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006, 31 U.S.C. ?? 5361 -5367 (2006).
UIGEA originally known as Pub. L. 109-347 was a piece of legislation comprised of seven statutes that could best described as ?hidden? at the end of a much larger bill with a much larger purpose, homeland security, to ensure its passage under the cover of darkness. Pub. L. 109-347 was also known as the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006, 6 U.S.C. ? 901 (2006) (hereinafter ?SAFE?).
?An Act to improve maritime and cargo security through enhanced layered defenses, and for other purposes.? Pub. L. 109-347.

Yet the statutes that comprise UIGEA begin by saying:

(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) Internet gambling is primarily funded through personal use of payment system instruments, credit cards, and wire transfers.
(2) The National Gambling Impact Study Commission in 1999 recommended the passage of legislation to prohibit wire transfers to Internet gambling sites or the banks which represent such sites.
(3) Internet gambling is a growing cause of debt collection problems for insured depository institutions and the consumer credit industry.
(4) New mechanisms for enforcing gambling laws on the Internet are necessary because traditional law enforcement mechanisms are often inadequate for enforcing gambling prohibitions or regulations on the Internet, especially where such gambling crosses state or national borders. 31 U.S.C. ? 5361(a) (2006):

They continue with 31 U.S.C. ? 5362(a) (2006):
The term ?unlawful Internet gambling? means to place, receive, or otherwise knowingly transmit a bet or wager by any means which involves the use, at least in part, of the Internet where such bet or wager is unlawful under any applicable Federal or State law in the State or Tribal lands in which the bet or wager is initiated, received, or otherwise made.

What exactly does this have to do with ?homeland security??

UIGEA continues on and in lays out the penalties for this ?homeland security? related offense by stating in 31 U.S.C. ? 5366(a)-(b) (2006):
(a) In general.--Any person who violates section 5363 shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both..
(b) Permanent injunction.--Upon conviction of a person under this section, the court may enter a permanent injunction enjoining such person from placing, receiving, or otherwise making bets or wagers or sending, receiving, or inviting information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers.
These seven statutes have nothing to do ?homeland security.?
However, still smarting in the aftermath of the heinous attacks of 9/11 our nation was in favor or anything that had to do with improving ?homeland security.? I say ?homeland security? because by 2005-2006 it had become a wide-ranging term meaning a wide-array of different things. To politicians of the day it meant one thing, ?pass.? There was no politician, from either party, that was willing to risk their political life by looking soft on ?homeland security? i.e. vetoing any piece of legislation regarding this touchy subject. To do so was akin to political suicide.

Despite UIGEA?s previous two incarnations escaping even the preliminary stages , these seven statutes, representing the interests of a precious few got thrown on to the end of a freight train with a veto-proof name SAFE, carrying 52 statutes designed to actually: improve maritime and cargo security through enhanced layered defenses,..and for other purposes.? Pub. L. 109-347, it was passed into law and took effect on October 13, 2006.

From that date, forward UIGEA made it illegal for any financial intuition in the United States to knowingly facilitate any financial transaction related to internet gambling. So while internet gambling is not illegal in the United States the act of depositing or withdrawing real money to do so is.



Sheldon Adelson:
This pathfinder on UIGEA would not be complete without mentioning Sheldon Adelson, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS 54.49 mrkt cap: 44.12B 4/27/15). Mr. Adelson is the world?s 18th richest man with a net worth of $28.9B as of 4/27/2015. Mr. Adelson, and the company he leads, earns the majority of their money from casino gambling. More specifically, land-based ?brick and mortar? casino gambling like one would find in Las Vegas.

To be even more precise, Mr. Adelson?s company has bet, no pun intended, heavily on Macau, an island 40 west of Hong Kong. Known as a ?Special Administrative Zone,? that has been treated much like Hong Kong and left to its own devices, which in the case of Macau, happens to be gambling? With revenues that dwarf Las Vegas, Macau is the Pacific if not the world?s prime destination for High Stakes gamblers. Since Macau is an island, room to expand is limited and the Sands has fought and gotten control of the valuable ?Cotai Strip? allowing it to capitalize handsomely on the area?s enormous gambling revenues.

Mr. Adelson also hates online gambling and any chance of every allowing it will not happen under his watch. Taking a position that reeks of both being self-serving and hypocritical, Mr. Adelson rails against online gambling diatribe titled, ?Online Gambling is Fools Gold.? You can read it in its entirety here:

Sheldon Adelson: Online Gambling Is Fool's Gold - Forbes

With his position on online gambling well known, it is even more well known that Mr. Adelson puts his money where his mouth is. In 2012 alone, he donated over $93M to various conservative Super PACs, among them the Karl Rove co-founded American Crossroads ($23M), as well as, Restore Our Future ($30M), a group that spent a mind-boggling $142,097,336 on the 2012 Federal Elections that saw the Republicans lose the White House but enjoy control of Congress available at: Sheldon Adelson spent &#36;93 million on the 2012 election. Here’s how. - The Washington Post. So going against this man?s political wishes, in a Nation that has become ?One dollar, one vote,? not, ?one person, one vote? is clearly risky.

[TONelson]

...k

[NeilZelkin]

Well Neil I think you make some solid points. But you see apathy is online poker's poison and nobody seems to care about it anymore. After this many years the world has moved on but we are still here.

[NeilZelkin]

Still no one home.