H.R. 4411 Bill To Ban Internet Gambling Passes The House Today

by mitchell posted Jul 10th 2006 at 22:00PM

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Today the H.R. 4411 Bill to ban internet gambling passed in the U.S. house of representatives by a margin of 317-93. Essentially what this law does is it restricts U.S. banking institutions or credit card companies from funding players accounts at the more than 2300 online gambling websites, which are all located offshore.

One of the reasons this new bill (The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 H.R. 4411) is such a significant piece of legislation to both players and operators is that it also updates the 1961 Wire Act. In 1961 when the wire act was passed into legislation it made placing wagers over the phone in the U.S. illegal. The new H.R. 4411 bill if passed will also update the wire act of 1961 to include placing wagers over the internet.

The caveat to this bill and the ultimate hypocrisy of H.R. 4411 is that there is a carve out in it that exempts state run lotteries and horse racing. For over 3 hours I watched our congressmen and women on CSPAN debate on how online gambling is ruining lives and families.........but apparently gambling on the state lotteries or off track betting facilities is not a threat to our morality.

Late in the session, Rep. Shelly Berkley (D-Nev.) made an amendment to the bill which removed the exemption for lotteries and horse racing. And rightfully so, how can the government judge if one type of online gambling is more dangerous than the other. Goodlatte responded that this ammendment if passed would kill the bill. He didn't have any explanation on how lotteries or horse racing was morally any better however. He just attacked the character of Rep. Berkley and instead whined like a little girl about how all the states attorney's supported him except for the DA from Nevada (her state).

Needless to say, the amendment failed. The problem with any online gambling bill if passed is that it will be nearly impossible to enforce. Even more difficult will be trying to prosecute an individual in a U.S. court of law for simply playing online poker. Regardless of what the law says and if it passes or not, the fundamental problem is that when you logon to an online poker site you are logging onto a site that is located on soil where online gaming is 100% legal. Any monetary transaction or wager takes place on a server that is located once again in a country where this is totally legal.

Sure the U.S. can ban U.S. based credit card companies or banks from processing payments to sites, but for the most part a good majority of online gamblers are already using a 3rd party payment processor. So if a player doesn't use a U.S. bank to deposit on a poker site, and is technically playing on a server that is on soil in a country where it is 100% legal..............wow talk about gray areas. Good luck getting a conviction on this for someone sitting on their couch playing a $10 sit n go. As you can see prohibition of online gambling will bring with it to the U.S. the same problems prohibition of alcohol did in the 1930's. Whether this bill passes the senate or not, it will be almost impossible to enforce on the casual internet gambler.

So where does that leave the legislation? Once again today H.R. 4411 passed the house. However the bill still needs to go to the senate and be passed by a majority vote. There are only a few weeks left in the year for the 109th congress. In the event this bill doesn't pass the senate in the next few weeks, it will need to be re-introduced again in 2007. I say the over/under on this getting to a vote in the senate in the next few weeks is slim to none.