The sixth annual European i-Gaming Congress and Expo – at the Barcelona Diagonal Conference Centre

Online Casinos:

[...] The complicated state of US law

The always fascinating subject of American state and federal law as applied to online gambling was next on the agenda, with US gaming lawyer and respected author Martin Owens and the more recent personality arrival Edward Leyden of iMEGA in the hot seats.

Owens ran over the ‘curious’ nature of state vs. federal law in the United States, detailing the complexities and inconsistencies and the apparent predilection of the enforcement authorities to harass and intimidate vulnerable targets rather than focusing on issues of US law that remain unresolved.

He predicted increased demand by individual states for some involvement in Internet gambling and the revenues it can raise. “Internet gambling is not dead in America,” he asserted.

Trade association iMEGA’s president Edward Leyden said that his organisation represented the wide interests of entertainment that included online gambling, insisting on the fundamental right for adults to engage in entertainment that may include online gambling.

He went on to give an impassioned summary of his organisation’s activities to date, primarily in taking the federal government to court on the UIGEA.

He praised Judge Mary L Cooper who is currently hearing the case and will make a ruling on iMEGA’s application for a restraining order on the UIGEA within the next 30 days as an erudite, fair and technology oriented official with conscientious attention to detail.

“Following the hearing last week, and without presuming to prejudge the issue, we came away feeling very confident in a fair and knowledgeable result from Judge Cooper,” he said before going on to discuss the just-published UIGEA regulatory proposals on which the government has invited comment by December 12 (see previous Online-Casinos.com/InfoPowa report)

Of the 52 pages published, only 16 deal with the actual regulations – the remainder was explanatory and indicated an attempt by the drafters to produce a fair and balanced document under difficult circumstances.

Leyden reminded the audience that many of the Congressmen voting on a security bill to which the UIGEA was attached at 2.30 am on the cusp of a Congressional recess late last year had not known what the attachment comprised.

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