The Morning After

The law is one thing. Actually enforcing it is something altogether different. It's unlikely that the Feds will knock down the doors of millions of online-poker-playing Americans. Logistically, it's next to impossible. Not to mention the PR hit they’d take for locking up a 1-2 limit player.

Think of it in terms of a parallel to illegal immigration. Despite the government’s bluster, there’s little it can do to boot millions of people out of the country. They don't have the manpower or the resources to execute such a staggering operation. Nor do I suspect they have the will. Sure, the gambling lobby will put pressure on the Feds to enforce the law, and they might make a few examples of people here and there, but the vast majority of players, like the vast majority of illegal immigrants, will likely be left unmolested. If there is any appreciable fallout from this legislation, it will be a shock.

I now invite the Batfaces to make INS jokes at my expense.

Like prohibition, like immigration, like any other gray area, people will find a work-around. Offshore bank accounts and the like. I imagine the online sites are scrambling at this very moment to come up with new solutions to funding U.S. accounts. It's just too much money to take off the table, so to speak.

And as Gonz points out-- it's a totally unenforceable law. I don't plan on emptying my accounts anytime soon.

Any discussion of a "repeal" is just plain dumb, in my opinion. Congress barely wastes it's "valuable" time passing laws that matter, let alone going back to revisit laws that don't.

The issue here is whether or not it will ever be effectively enforced. Since our gun laws currently have little effect and our immigration laws have little effect... we can only hope that this stupid law will go the same way.

Were I a resident of Antigua, I'd think about launching a business that offered exchanges --- in and out --- using plain old international money orders drawable in American currency.

Of course, then there'd be a new addition to the Axis of Evil...

I agree with most other comments in that this is about enforceability, and how much there is.

In my opinion, the biggest parallel you can draw is the whole illegal downloads thing of a few years back. It was illegal the whole time but not enforced, its supposedly now more illegal and there were some higher profile busting of people doing it, but despite iTunes and Napster's paying options that are now available, you can still download pretty much anything you want for free. Bottom line, the thinkers are always one step ahead of the law, and there's too much of it going on to be able to stop.

I think some sites will pull out, but some will figure out a workaround. There's always a workaround. Had they made the actual act of gambling online illegal, it may be a different story, but based on my understanding, its more about making the funding options illegal. So we may see some high profile enforcement to scare us, and some companies appear to be willing to comply. Otherwise, I'm sure we'll see most continuing on as usual, and some trying to stay one step ahead and figure out a workaround.