In Fall of 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed into law, putting the online gambling industry in a tailspin.  Instead of presenting the Act as one bill, it was snuck into a port safety act that had no chance of veto.  However, the act did not make the act of playing poker or gambling at an offshore gambling site illegal.  It made it illegal for banks to transfer funds to gambling sites on players' behalf, as well as accepting money from gambling sites.  A deadline in Summer 2007 was set to decide the proper enforcement of the act.  However, the date has come and gone, and no enforcement of the act is possible in its current state.  The UIGEA also failed to define "Unlawful Internet Gambling" leading to further difficulty and murky clarity of the UIGEA.  

    Some states have in fact banned online gambling.  These are Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, Indiana, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and South Dakota, and have equally vague laws pertaining to the definition of online gambling; and are also being challenged legally.  To date, there have been no prosecutions related to gambling with an offshore gambling site, and will likely not be in the near future.  

    There is also great misunderstanding of the online gambling landscape since the passing of the UIGEA.  Many US poker players believe sites like Party Poker were banned by the US government.  Party Poker, and sites that do not accept US customers have chosen to bar US citizens to avoid international scrutiny.  Usually these are publicly owned companies, as is the case with Party Poker.  Some sites even bar customers from the states listed above and accept customers from states with no online gambling laws.  

For more information on online poker law, and to support fair online poker legislation, visit the Poker Players' Alliance at http://pokerplayersalliance.org.

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