Does Uigea Not Apply To Poker

[psujohn 0]

I haven't really been following this much but afaik the treasury still hasn't issued guidelines for banks regarding what the can/can't do since the passage of UIGEA. Lets ignore the fact that they're way behind schedule for doing so. Then I read an interesting tidbit at pokernews: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/02/sena...ion-clarity.htmThe article quotes from a letter that some senators wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Fed chairman. The really interesting bits are:

The extensive public comments received on this issue highlight the likelihood that risk-averse financial institutions will simply choose to block every transaction that may be interpreted or could resemble gambling, whether legal or not. Knowing that this is not your intention, we write to urge that any final rules contain a list of restricted transactions and instances that are covered by the law and the corresponding rules.As an alternative, we suggest you consider separating the rules into those forms of activities for which there is settled federal law (i.e., defined by the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA)) and those that are not. This would allow immediate implementation for known activities, while providing greater time to determine what other transactions are to be captured.

I find this very interesting because:- the phrase "legal or not" implies that some form of internet gambling is or could be legal- they explicitly point out sports betting as illegal and other forms of gambling as unresolvedI find the "not your intention" bit quite funny since the Treasury and Fed actually have no "intention" of their own. They're merely instructed to enact what congress "intended" and the phrasing of this bit seems to say "we don't intend that you restrict every transaction that could resemble gambling".Around the time of the Neteller blowup I proposed that an online payment processor that didn't deal with any sports betting sites might be able to survive in the US. Seems to me that when the regulations are written that may very well be the case.

[vbnautilus 48]

In other words they're still going to shut down Epassporte but just haven't gotten around to it yet?