The UIGEA fails clarity once again – US Poker Rooms Can Simply Not be Affected
Posted on July 29, 2010 by John Trevors for Luckyroom.com
After yesterday’s news claiming that the result of Barney Frank’s online gambling act came in favor of legalizing online gaming in the USA will be soon become effective some so called industry specialists came in to rushing conclusions that Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars will be affected as they have continued to accept wagers after the implementation of the UIGEA in 2006 therefore making them non-eligible to proceed with applying to be legislated in the US. If the bill passes through as its implementation clearly notes that sites or enterprises that did not go with the 2006 rule will not be allowed to apply to be licensed and regulated. After the news hit the headlines many propagandists rushed to make conclusions that this might mean the very end of the two big boys pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com as the two currently leading poker rooms online have not paused their acceptance of US players after the UIGEA fell in action but on the contrary took advantage of the bill to penetrate the market by enjoying a significant pool of players that were no longer accepted at partypoker.com and other big online poker networks that back then lead the game.
The new bill HR 2267 is a proposed legislation that seeks to amend title 31, United States Code, to provide for the licensing of Internet gambling activities by the Secretary of the Treasury, to provide for consumer protections on the Internet, to enforce the tax code, and for other purposes. So lets put down the facts and make it quite simple as this industry is being overwhelmed with too many specialists which in reality don’t know the facts but rush to post news articles and comments on sites and blogs which people read in an attempt to be updated; these so called specialists which in reality are propagandists should start thinking before they post news saying that pokerstars.com might be bought from facebook.com.
The facts
- Combined Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars control more than 50% of the international online poker market.
- The current situation allows them to benefit from minimum taxes or even none in many cases
- Software used by both sites is proprietor; it can be sold licensed or rebranded to any domain.
- If the US government proceeds with the above ruling the only player lost is themselves as with the current market share the two rooms have they have developed too much for others to even follow.
- Both sites possibly own their own banks under different entities
- Both sites are very little dependant on a ruling that will enable credit card processing as due to the large volume of funds they circulate there is always a bank to accept their business.
Well said and there’s much more that can add up to the list but for the sake of not becoming too peaky lets focus on the basics. PokerStars.com and Fulltiltpoker.com can simply not be forced out of this market as they partially own it; they are the people that made online poker what it is today and no entity, no bill and no Barney Frank can push them out of the market; anyone placing an embargo towards them is realistically shooting himself in the foot. Although we are not directly affiliated or associated with any of the two above mentioned online poker rooms our guess is that #1 they both prefer for the market to remain closed for the rest of the operators and #2 they don’t really care if it does open and their left out as the tax cut Uncle Sam would be enjoying is just too much of a cost for two poker rooms that have remained tax free for more than 8 consecutive years. The truth is yet to come.
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