by Kate
3. June 2010 10:59
How to have fun without poker
Despite the beginning of the ever popular 2010 World Series of Poker this week, poker news seemed more focussed on the official implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
The UIGEA was voted into enforcement in the US in 2006 and was designed to stop banking institutions from being able to transfer funds to illegal Internet gambling sites. This applied most notably to poker, sports betting and general casino sites while seeming to remain oblivious to online horse racing, fantasy sports and lottery wagers.
As a result, most online gaming sites shut down their US sites after 2006 while many online poker players got scared away despite the law not saying it is illegal to play- players got their cash out never to play online again. Meanwhile the sites that continued to do business in the US gained a whole lot of new players.
As banks got stricter and better at filtering transactions to online gambling sites, the sites quickly found ways around it. Debit cards could still be used for deposits; with businesses set up as fronts that disguised gambling sites.
Despite the ways around the UIGEA law, most sites are more comfortable with extracting themselves from such a volatile, and hostile, market.