Last week at United States two developments took place in relation to online gambling law.

After a long wait the HR 2267 – the bill introduced in May 2009 by Representative Barney Frank that wishes to legalize, tax and regulate online gambling of the US citizens – is scheduled for committee vote. It also stands a chance of becoming a law if it can have a full bi-partisan support as mentioned by the executive director of Poker Players Alliance (PPA), John Pappas. PPA has a record of lending their support in legalizing online gambling and has facilitated players too to voice and lend their support to the legislators. However, the bi-partisan support seems to be unrealistic and even if the voting does take place it will be a more along the party lines. Out of 65 Representative supporters, 4 are only Republicans while the Democrats are in majority. The UIGEA rule will be in effect if the bill fails to become a law before 1^st June, 2010.

The disappointment continues with the Kentucky domain name seizure case. The judgment given by the Kentucky Court of Appeals went in favor of the holders of the domain name and iMEGA. In spite of that the Commonwealth of Kentucky appealed against it at the Kentucky Supreme Court and the case was heard in 2009 October. The order was expected to be released last week, however, according to Joe Brennan Junior, iMEGA chairman, no dates are listed for the month of February. The court is too busy to hand down any decision before 18^th of March (the earliest possible date).

A favorable decision is expected by the iMEGA. Even if the order is not favor, the domains will simply change their name and continue to operate. However, the biggest blow to the online gambling world that happened is due to the Kentucky domain case is Microgaming’s withdrawal from the American market.

In spite of all these, there still is a glimmer of hope for the online gamblers of USA. Thus, every online gambling aficionado is looking forward to the passing of the bill along with the favorable Kentucky Supreme Court ruling regarding the domain.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 12:56 am and is filed under casino news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.