Scratching below the surface of player reactions on the forums does reveal a rather more worrying trend as it appears that a lot of US gamblers are turning to less scrupulous operators who have taken advantage of the situation to solidify a position in the US market. In the 21st Century, left largely to its own devices, the online gambling industry had slowly but surely started to push the illegal, poorly run or fraudulent gambling operators out of the picture. By 2006, the online gambling industry was a much safer place for punters with big brand names dominating the market. Following the UIGEA, perhaps unsurprisingly, the more established operators, those with shareholders and accountable business practices were the first to pull out of the US to avoid confronting US law. Almost overnight, many of the big names disappeared in the US, and with the benefit of hindsight, the path was left clear for some of those casinos, poker rooms and sportsbooks who were previously pushed out to return.
A number of the higher profile payment processors (e-wallets) left the market, like Neteller exiting amid major pressure from the DOJ. Of all the areas affected by the UIGEA, the payment processing market in the past 18 months has been the most turbulent. We’ve seen processors step into the US, then out again, a huge increase in the use of prepaid cards, followed by new payment processors being created specifically for the purpose of online gambling. For US punters, finding one you feel you can trust has been a fraught affair. There seems to be signs that it is settling down, but there is no doubt that the choices are severely limited, and more importantly that those choices now mean US punters often have to put up with long delays when receiving their money, and often when the payments do arrive, they are from anonymous benefactors making tracking a tedious and confusing task.
So what next for online gambling in the US? Clearly, the situation at present has to change. Even the most fervent supporter of banning online gambling would admit that US punters need clarity and a situation that avoids putting gamblers at risk. Prohibition would not be a popular solution, but it is an option and to stand a chance of working, it would have to avoid the exclusions built into the UIGEA. But then, does the USA really want to be a democratic nation that bans its citizens from playing poker? Probably not. Regulation is another option. This is being widely adopted in European countries where perhaps society is more open and trusting, not forgetting of course that anti-Monopoly laws and the WTO exert a large influence. In the USA, Senators Barnet Frank and Ron Paul have put together HR 5767 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-5767) garnering support to effectively repeal the UIGEA by ceasing the Treasury from implementing rules on banks to prevent gambling transactions.
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