Last week the Washington Examiner newspaper ran an opinion piece regarding online gambling written by Louis Freeh and Tom Ridge. The article called for lawmakers to swiftly enact unambiguous legislation regarding internet poker and internet gambling.
Both men have previously served the United States government in important jobs regarding law enforcement and security. Louis Freeh served as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1993 until 2001, and is currently on the board of the grassroots pro-Poker lobby group known as FairPlayUSA. Tom Ridge served as Secretary for the United States Department of Homeland Security from 2003 until 2005.
In their article they explain that the current state of legal limbo that online gaming currently resides in can be very harmful to users. According to them, these effects include a lack of sufficient “safeguards against fraud, underage gambling and money laundering.” The writers recognize that trying to police a “borderless internet” is very challenging, but they have come up with some key issues. Coming from strong law enforcement backgrounds, they feel that the following aspects need to be implemented in order to enable proper enforcement:
– Clarification and strengthening of the Wire Act and the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
– Providing federal law enforcement agencies with more tools to enable them to work with financial institutions to crack down on illegal gambling operations.
– Protect the rights of individual states to allow or disallow specific forms of gambling within their state. Along with a mandate that online gambling operators properly block users located in those states that choose not to allow gambling.
– Establishment of strong regulatory frameworks to ensure proper licensing requirements and operations, which would translate into protection for the consumers.
They go on to say that Congress should quickly and decidedly enact laws that would meet these law enforcement goals. Their hope is that doing so would enable them to shut down offshore operations who offer illegal gambling to Americans. They would also like it to allow regulated operations to continue to do business, as long as they abide by the strict regulations that should accompany such legislation.