Looking for a way around regs
December 28th, 2006
According to recent rumblings out of Vegas, the latest way to avoid the prohibitive measures outlined in the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) could be to use checks. The Techworld publication indicates that many US gamblers are looking for such ways to circumvent the ban considering the fact that it does not criminalise individual gamblers.
Current enforcement is based on the blocking of credit card payments by banks, but sources maintain that alternative payment methods may be successful.
“If you send a check in, you’ll be fine. There’s no way it’s going to stop,” the publication quotes former New Jersey gambling regulator Frank Catania as saying.
Others suggest that the online gambling market, now worth several billion dollars per year, is too big to ever be stopped effectively.
“I have no doubt the private operators will pick up the slack,” said Tejinder Randhawa, an analyst for Evolution Securities in London.