Politico: Momentum shifting to online gambling regulation
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An article published today on political news site Politico.com took a positive view on the potential for a near-term legislative solution to the issue of online gambling regulation. Politico cited the increasing support for Barney Frank’s legislation, the re-introduction of Jim McDermott’s bill to draw revenue via taxation of online gambling, and the opposition of many in the financial services industry to a prohibitionist paradigm as factors that are moving the US Federal Government closer to a policy of regulation.
Excerpt from the article:
The Frank hearing comes as federal regulators struggle to decipher the law for banks and other financial institutions required to block this flow of money to foreign gambling sites. The Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve issued guidelines last fall that were intended to clarify what types of transactions banks, credit card companies and other institutions should block.
But many of those financial services companies, in conjunction with gamblers, lawmakers and a broad cross section of trade associations affected by the law, have since flooded the Treasury and the Federal Reserve with protest letters, arguing the clarification itself was too vague. In letters to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a group of congressional Republicans argued that banks will choose to block every transaction that might be interpreted as gambling, whether it is legal or not, if these regulators do not do a better job of clarifying which transactions banks must block.
Related: The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a story on McDermott’s legislation that you can read here.
