Although he was struck incredibly surprised by the Bush administration’s last-minute attempts to push through the uiGEA regulations, Barney Frank was also incredibly disappointed. For more than two years, financial and government leaders have brought testimony on the ineffective, illogical and unenforceable issues that are evident through the law. The UIGEA attempts to block payment transactions that have any ties to the online gambling industry. What the Bush administration and Treasury officials are now doing is known as pushing a “midnight drop” of regulations.

Even though Frank has asked Henry Paulson to slow down the process and in effect save it as something for the incoming administration to deal with after careful review and discussions over the proposed rule changes. Frank, a Representative from Massachusetts, has been dedicated to trying to dismantle the damage that the UIGEA has brought to the industry. He is pushing for a bill that would halt UIGEA implementation so that the financial system within the United States can be kept on a more stable level as it goes through an increasingly challenging time with the shoddy economy.

Pushing through with the finalizing efforts on the UIGEA will bring a substantial burden on the incoming president and his administration, a burden that is really unnecessary with all of the other more pressing obligations they are going to have to confront in their first few months in office. If the current administration does have success with pushing through the new regulations, they will go into event the very last day of Bush’s last term in the White House, after going through a review by the Office of Management and Budget and a 60-day consideration period.

Over the course of a number of years, through many rigorous debated in General Assembly, the issue regarding legalizing slot machines in Maryland has gone up and down and all around. Finally, in this week’s election, the people of Maryland finally came to a decision. They voted to legalize slot machine gambling by 59-41.

An amendment to the constitution is now set up to let as many as 15,000 slot machines reside in five separate locations including one venue each in the city in Baltimore and also within the counties of Cecil, Worcester, Allegany and Anne Arundel. As the only Washington-area location where the slots legislation includes details for a slots palace, the Maryland Jockey Club-owned track in Laurel has declared that it will push to apply for a license.

Many voters say that they went for the slots decision because they have seen a great many Maryland license plates parked in front of gambling venues in West Virginia. Much better would be to have those players putting their dollars into Maryland’s economy rather than those of other states.

Not everyone voted for the amendment, however. Some folks rejected it because they believe that it will lead to an increase in crime within the state of Maryland. As for online slot machines, the jury is still out. But with the passion for slots that Maryland voters have demonstrated, it only seems natural that improvements in online slot machine legislation will be in the works in the near future. Keep your eyes and ears open so you can get on board when the time comes.

Another longtime ally of the Internet gambling industry is Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington State. In terms of his work on behalf of online gambling, he is best known for introducing HR 2607 and HR 6501. These bills both deal with the taxation of Internet gambling. Although other politicians such as Berkley and Porter have rejected HR 6501 that has indicated that as much as $40 billion could be raised for job skills in those declining industries, many people are in support of it. They say it demonstrates a real strong effort to outline the incredibly positive impacts that the online gambling industry could potentially have on society. McDermott had no real trouble trouncing his opponent in the race, scoring a landslide victory over Republican Steve Beren 84% to 15%.

Several politicians who have dedicated themselves to be the thorn in the side of the online gambling industry faced re-election this week also. Virginian Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte, one of the key figures in driving the UIGEA into law in 2006 beat out his Deomcratic opponent Sam Rasoul in a 61% to 36% final tally.  As the Representative for the 6th Congressional District of Virginia, Goodlatte is notorious as online poker’s biggest enemy.

Another sworn enemy of the online gambling industry, Congressman Spencer Bachus, a Republican from Alabama won his race. That isn’t too incredibly impressive since he ran unopposed. He is the leading Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. His claim to fame as a nutcase concerns the tie he made up a study by McGill University out of thin air. He claimed the study showed that a third of all college students who engage in some form of online gambling end up attempting suicide. Unfortunately for Bachus, no such study every happened at the Canadian university. Nevertheless, the American people decided that he deserved to get re-elected.

Not all of the political allies of the online gambling industry belong to the Democrats. Several prominent Republicans have been hard at work fighting the good fight as well. Take for instance, Congressman Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas. He introduced HR 6663. The main goals of this bill are to better define the relationship between the UIGEA and online sports betting, pushing mainly for the Act to focus specifically on the online sports betting sector. Representing the 32nd Congressional District of Texas, Sessions scored a convincing win over Democratic candidate Eric Robertson by 57% to 40%.

Another online gambling advocate who does not play for the Democratic team is Texan Congressman Ron Paul. He co-authored HR 5767, the original version of the Payments System Protection Act, along with Barney Frank. Although the bill was defeated in Committee, an amendment has been added and things are now looking even more optimistic that it will find its way all the way through congress.

Republican Jon Porter and Democrat Shelley Berkley, Representatives of Nevada have previously introduced legislation dedicated to the study of online gambling. Berkley worked to push through HR 2140, along with 73 co-sponsors near the end of the 2008 Congressional session. That is the most sponsors ever for any internet gambling-related bill. Fortunately, Berkley won the race 67% to 28%, but things did not have such a great outcome for Porter. He lost to Democrat Tina Titus in a very close race 47% to 42%. So overall, this race brought some positive developments for the online gambling industry and also, but with less frequency, a few negative effects as advocates of the industry lost their races.

While Barney Frank is the most well-known political advocate for the interests of the online gambling industry, there are many other “soldiers” fighting the good fight to restructure certain pieces of legislation so that the restrictions on the industry are reasonable, logical and enforceable. With most of the politicians who have worked to address issues related to the industry mainly falling under the democratic category, it is great news that in this week’s election, an overwhelming number of democrats beat out their Republican opponents throughout the country.

A Democrat from Florida, Robert Wexler, has made considerable progress in addressing how games of skill should be omitted from the UIGEA and the Wire Act. To this end, he introduced HR 2610, the Skill Game Protection Act that serves to exempt online bridge, chess, poker and other games of skill from both the UIGEA and the Wire Act. If you are scratching your head trying to figure out exactly what they may mean by “games of skill” it is rather simple. The basic definition of a skill game is where the main action involves one player versus another player, as opposed to one player playing against the house (or casino). As the representative of the 19th Congressional District of Florida, Wexler had tremendous success with his recent campaign, beating Republican Edward Lynch by 66% to 27%.

While this victory may only mean small steps forward towards improving the legislation that dictates the guidelines for the online gambling industry, they are very positive signs that more and more opportunities will open up to reduce the overreaching power of the UIGEA Act and other misguided pieces of legislation that fail to serve the interests of the people.

With so much at stake as the results of the election have come in, it is hard to know where to begin. Folks inside the online gambling industry, however, have not missed a beat in keeping tabs on the elected citizens who are supposed to be working for them. Let’s take a moment to examine the political efforts of a few politicians to see who stands where on the issues most important to the industry.

One of the most dedicated and best-known politicians who stands firmly in support of the online gambling industry is a democrat from Massachusetts named Barney Frank. As the 2008 congressional session was winding down, he was diligently pushing forward HR 6870, a revised version of the Payment System Protection Act through the House Financial Services Committee.
The aim of the bill is to define the parameters of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) so that the do’s and don’ts are much more clear for regular citizens to understand.

Fortunately for the online gambling industry, Frank won the election handily, beating out his Republican opponent Earl Sholley by 68% to 25%. If HR 6870 does not come to the forefront in the midst of a lame duck session during these last few months of 2008, it will have to be reintroduced come 2009, as with any pending legislation. And no one is in a better position to lead that fight than Barney Frank. Although there are several issues that will have to be addressed first in this time of severe economic woes, hopefully issues related to online gambling will be addressed in a timely manner.