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Monday, June 24, could be a big day for the future of online gaming in the United States if Barney Frank and Ron Paul have anything to say about it.
The House Committee on Financial Services will mark up legislation that will prohibit the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System from proposing, prescribing or implementing any regulations related to the current ban on Internet gambling, as required by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). The mark up process will allow legislators to further discuss, debate and amend H.R. 5767.
“Congress has studied this issue and heard from the financial services community and federal regulators that the current ban on Internet gambling is burdensome and doomed to fail. Now it is time for Congress to change course and find a way to protect the millions of Americans that are continuing to gamble online,” said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.
H.R. 5767 was introduced by Frank (D-Mass.) and Paul (R-Texas) on April 11, 2008 following a hearing entitled “Proposed UIGEA Regulations: Burden without Benefit?”. The hearing, the House Committee on Financial Service’s Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology, heard from numerous bank industry experts that said the UIGEA would be very difficult to enforce.
The Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve did acknowledge there were some challenges that banks would face in attempting to comply with the Act.
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