UIGEA Impact

Most poker players have heard of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). This law made it illegal for financial institutions to process transactions from internet gaming companies. Originally this bill was supposed to be enacted last year but the Poker Player’s Alliance succeeded in winning an extension of enforcement to June 1, 2010. In the weeks leading up to the enforcement date, online poker rooms and their players were curious as to what impact there would be. You could find players everywhere that had different ideas of what might happen. Some swore online poker would not change at all, others said the games would all dry up as players would be unable to move money back and forth from their back to their account. Now that we are almost one and a half months past the enforcement date it is fair to ask, how much of an impact has the UIGEA had?

To the casual poker player, the answer would be none what so ever. Most online poker rooms came out with multiple ways for players to both deposit and withdraw their money. Operating in what is likely a multi-billion dollar industry there are plenty of reasons why poker rooms would look for ways to ensure financial transactions between players were safe and secure. The only reported issues poker players have mentioned are paper checks issued from poker rooms. For the most part, using third party processors or even a direct bank transfer has continued without a hiccup.

Knowing that you can still deposit and withdraw as necessary comes as a welcome relief to many players who were unsure of what would happen to not only online poker but their own personal bankroll. It is unknown if the government will attempt to prosecute individuals who play online poker in the future but it would probably be surprising if they did. The bigger fish to fry are the internet poker rooms and their payment processors. If the overall goal is to stop online gaming then targeting players would be a time consuming ill advised strategy. As of now, there are no publicly known investigations of poker rooms and the bigger sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker continue to operate as normal. Even with the UIGEA, as the saying goes, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

Curtis Steuber.