 There was a lot of noise last week when the present United States Administration appeared to finally put some actual regulations behind the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. On further examination though it appears that nothing may have changed. For one thing, the "new" regulations still say nothing about what is and what is not "unlawful internet gaming". Those definitions seem to be left to either local jurisdictions or to the banks and financial institutions who must bear the brunt of the UIGEA.
Second, the new regulations are now in a comment period and will not be a compliance burden on financial institution until December 1, 2009. This leaves plenty of time for the new administration and a friendly Congress to kill the law, even on grounds of it being "overly vague" or a "regulatory burden on the financial institutions" involved. There is actually no need for any agency to actually address the issue of unlawful internet gaming.
It was and remains a poorly written piece of legislation, which in all likelihood is unenforceable on its face. It was a good scare tactic but it also mobilized the poker industry, which should have positive consequences for poker players in the long term.
The European Union, on the other hand, seems drawing ever closer to actually making some kind of decision on internet gaming policy. Unfortunately, in this case, it would seem that the individual nations involved in the EU dispute seem to be gaining support for local rather than EU control. While the public arguments are centered on moral and social customs about gambling within varying cultures; the truth is more like that some countries are making a huge amount of money via their private gambling fiefdoms and they don't want to share. Remember we are not talking about taxation or regulatory fees, like we are in the U.S. No, the European Union members are after the rake from gaming sites. In the EU, some countries want to be your book maker. Maybe we can replace volunteer armies with just those citizens who are behind on their gambling debts.
The EU position is that gaming is an industry just like wine and cheese and automobiles. The countries who have staked out a private gaming website do not want to relinquish their income stream, so they argue that gambling is a moral question. Right now in the EU, it appears that the decision making scale may be tipping to the side of moral greed and away from an open markets policy.
When the new more open U.S. government takes over next year, there is every belief that their national prohibitionist position on online gaming will at some point be reversed. Eventually the U.S. will regulate the online poker industry for U.S. players.
Let me suggest that this will make similar decisions in all parts of the world much more difficult. Let's take Sweden's Svenska Spel gaming monopoly for example. Despite EU pressure Svenska Spel and other national owned and operated gaming monopolies continue to both operate and exclude other online sites from operating within certain geographic boundaries.
There are advantages to government run sites. A uniform, non-English language is often used. Social and moral concerns are addressed within the strictures of a unique cultural set. And the government makes a lot of money on the rake.
But here comes the not too distant crisis of conscience and of pocket book. As far as online poker, the U.S. constitutes the largest revenue stream and dollar for dollar, euro for euro, lira for lira, peso for peso; the Americans gamble for more cash then any other nation on the net. This, of course, has to do with multiple factors of disposable income, as well as high speed internet penetration.
The problem? Do you want to keep these American gamblers out of your market, when they could substantially increase your revenue by inviting them in?
Well no, you say, bring them in to our website.
Here is the problem that all nations will face in the new unfolding open online marketplace. Countries, like the US, will ban your site, if you ban their sites. So Svenska Spel will have to let their citizens out, if they let others in. This will be a hard decision for some national gaming monopolies but the change in the U.S. law will also make the overall EU decision easier. The monster revenue potential of opening to the United States market will be just too much to ignore. What will break down trade barriers is not thoughtful regulation but the specter of lost profits.
 The European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee will meet next week in Brussels to consider a draft report which seeks a European Parliament Resolution on 'the integrity of online gambling'. The report is clearly not favorable to online gaming and online poker. And although the report is not binding on future Commission action, the report reasserts all of the negatives used by opponents of online gaming and freedom of the internet. Once again we are to be protected from ourselves.
There is a separate political issue involved here that does not get much press and that is the EU Commission and the European Court of Justice are overwhelmed with gaming cases. Every country wants to assert it sovereign rights over gambling issues and every other country wants everyone else to honor those local and jingoistic regulations. Unfortunately, the EU was established, at least in part, to lower such lower tariffs and trade laws but with gambling there is the miasma of the moral and social order to be considered.
Rather than seek to revolve issues of regulation and fair business practices, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee has chosen to go with the reactionary position of prohibition.
"Member States have a legitimate interest in monitoring and regulating their gambling markets in order to protect consumers against addiction, fraud, money-laundering and fixed games as well as to protect the culturally-built funding structures which finance sports activities and other social causes," and "underlines that online gambling operators should comply with the legislation of the Member State in which they provide their services."
The report goes on site the nebulous fears of all prohibitionists:
"Online gambling is likely to give rise to risks to consumers and that Member States may therefore legitimately restrict the freedom to provide online gambling services in order to protect consumers."
Fortunately, the EU Parliament tends to act in the best interest of the whole of the EU populations, whereas the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee tends to put forward the interests of individual member states, many of which seek to retain their own national gaming monopolies.
Online gaming continues to be the single largest unresolved issue before the EU Commission with no real signs of any movement towards an open market solution at this time.
 While nearly all of the European Union members could be and perhaps should be arguing over the myriad of byzantine online poker regulations; it appears that historical antagonists are now going to verbally spare over the dispute.
The UK House of Lords has condemned the French government and the gambling laws that protect their monopoly on gaming and poker, calling the laws "atrocious." Interestingly, the French have recently given signs of moderating their position and there are certainly more intractable members of the EU on this issue. The French government has certainly delayed its response to pressure from the EU commission on the free trade aspects around online gaming. But one wonders why now? And why point out that the punishment for online gambling is the same as for child pornographers?
Lord James of Blackheath pointed out that the punishment for a French national to place a bet with a British online bookmaker is one year in prison and a Euro 75,000 fine, the same punishment given pedophiles that download child porn.
One wonders if the European Union must now step up and actively pursue one or more countries whose online gaming laws leave them outside the statutory mandates of the EU for free and fair trade.
 The nations, city-states, regions and races of the European continent have fought for thousands of years. They have fought over territory, religion, ethnicity, money, freedom and slavery, human rights and the right to control humans. Since 1993, the European Union has attempted to be:
"A political and economic community of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Europe. The EU comprises a single market created by a system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains a common trade policy, agricultural and fisheries policies, and a regional development policy. The EU represents its members in the WTO and observes at G8 summits and at the UN. With almost 500 million citizens, the EU generated an estimated 31% share of the world's nominal GDP (US$16.6 trillion) in 2007." [Wikipedia]
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Some major accomplishments of the EU treaty organization have been:
-the abolition of passport requirements between member nations; although they are now considering fingerprinting all non-EU visitors.
-assigning the exclusive use of the word "chocolate" to a country that exists in the middle of a continent that grows not one single cacao tree.
-a united front for trade negotiations with non-EU members; internal negotiations have not gone so well; which leads us to poker.
Oh right, poker! The EU Internal Markets Commissioner, who is charged with the free flow of trade and products within the European Union is having one hell of a time with regulating or rather de-regulating online gaming. And here you thought the biggest problem was who gets to call their sparkling headache water--champagne.
Below is a current overview of EU members and their non-compliance with the free flow of pot limit poker on the web.
 OK, we all know that the United States government made some trade deals with the Europeans and Antigua-Barbuda and several other countries, in order to enforce the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. Now it seems some taxpayers would like to know exactly the terms of those trade deals. Seems simply enough, right?
So, it seems freelance writer Ed Brayton filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the financial details of these trade agreements. The United States Trade Representative responded by telling Brayton that the information he requested was classified because of national security.
"Be advised that the document you seek is being withheld in full pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(1), which pertains to information that is properly classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958."
Brayton writes on his blog,
"Americans, according to this administration, have no right to know how many billions of our tax dollars they've spent with no legislative authorization whatsoever in order to buy the cooperation of other nations and allow them to continue to violate the rights of American adults by preventing them from gambling in the privacy of their own home."
I really want to say something witty or mean and perhaps even sound disgusted but this is just too stupid for words. The only thing that really scares me is that there probably are some Washington officials who really believe that poker is a national security issue; that and we pay these people's salaries to be this incredibly stupid in public.
And finally for U.S. voters, some actual political poker humor.
 It would seem that the more action taken by individual national governments the less clear the legality of the online poker industry becomes. Take a look at a few of these comments made over the last several days.
"The US trade representative said press reports had 'misrepresented' an agreement with the European Commission this week to resolve a trade dispute over the US ban on online gambling. A spokeswoman said the agreement, in which the US offered concessions on the postal, courier and other sectors, would not involve "any change" in US law or practice and was simply intended to provide greater legal certainty to some sectors."
One wonders how 'concessions' do not involve 'change'?
 The European Union is a interesting multi-national device. In theory, everyone cooperates to the benefit of all. In reality, each nation state continues to try and get the best deal for themselves and in the process an inferior trade deal for everyone else they are "cooperating" with. Online gaming is a clear example of this struggle and a trade target able to hide behind the screen of social stigma and moral values.
By the way, the "50 Years Together" predominant in all the EU literature these days refers to The Treaty of Rome signed in 1957, which established the European Economic Community (EEC) among France, West Germany, Italy and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg). The current European Union has 27 members nations.
As far as online gaming cooperation the EU is at odds with most of its members in this area. Some European countries have taken aggressive steps to try to stop private-sector online gambling companies from outside their borders. Not that online is not allowed, it certainly is but it is dominated by State gambling monopolies. While promoting their own gaming products, various states argue the need to block overseas competition under the doubtful pretext to control addiction and money laundering; along with a myriad of "morals" issues.
 With more news everyday from around the world, what exactly is the state of online poker today?
Clearly when considering a worldwide regulatory environment there is not enough space in one blog, one article or one book to cover all of the issues but let's look at some recent developments.
The big three in online poker remain: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Party Poker but the numbers have been changing.
PokerStars leapt to the top of the market when Party Poker left the US market after the passage of the UIGEA. But most industry watchers credit the continuing #1 position to the PokerStars sponsorship of the European Poker Tour.
Full Tilt Poker, on the other hand, while still in a solid second place is now often tied with the former leader Party Poker. Full Tilt continues to enhance its market share via its ever growing sponsorship of Full Tilt Professionals.
Party Poker continues to build its brand worldwide, diligently avoiding confrontations with any individual government's regulatory system; while focusing attention on those markets that remain open.
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