It’s no secret that the 2006 UIGEA is largely a failure. Americans are still playing online, despite the many obstacles that have been put in place. People like to play casino games, and they really seem to like playing them online. UIGEA has been vague and very difficult to enforce. As has been pointed out, it places most of the burden of enforcement on banks, something they are ill prepared and unwilling to do. So, what is now being proposed is a system similar to those being implemented in Europe, where online casinos are given

 

 

licenses to operate in the country and that way even if the company is located outside of the country, not all of the money will be leaving the local economy. US lawmakers who had supported the UIGEA ban had stated repeatedly that the money being lost to overseas operators was not the reason for the ban. The reason given for the ban was to protect players from things like fraud and problem gambling. The problem is, Americans are still playing online, at least $5 billion per year is still going to foreign operators, and since they are unlicensed, there is no way to force them to conform to any set of regulations. The argument then is that since people are going to play online anyway, there might as well be a system in place to make sure that they are cheated and also for the government to make money off of it.