Heated Debate Leads to Mark Up Plans for the Anti UIGEA Bill Proposed by Barney Frank

Duke, Lynn Malerba, and Ed Williams spoke out in favor of the bill, and Michael Fagan and Tom Malkasian spoke out against the bill.

 

“The legislation is fundamentally flawed and unsound,” said Malkasian, going on to say that he thought the law would “brazenly award foreign illegal operators.” Fagan said that he was concerned that an open market could present money laundering risks and that things would simply better off without regulation.

 

As one would imagine the hearing did provide some tense moments, including a heated exchange between Duke and Congressman Bacchus who brought up the UltimateBet scandal and noted the Duke’s affiliation with the site. Duke managed to turn his argument against him however when after correcting him on the amount of money involved in the scandal, and she said that such a situation was precisely the reason the federal government needed to pass a bill similar to HR 2267.

 

“The site self-regulated and refunded all the money to its customers. I would prefer to have something like HR 2267 so that the government could oversee that regulation. I think that the customers of that site were lucky that they were playing under a site with new management that behaved in an honest way and refunded them,” said Duke. “The one individual who perpetrated the crime and breached the software has not been prosecuted because unfortunately there is no jurisdiction to do so.”

 

A lot of the talk during the meeting surrounded what age-verification methods would need to be implemented in order to ensure underage citizens cannot access online gambling sites. Bacchus asked Fagan if current age-verification methods were fool-proof, and the former prosecutor answered, “The short answer is no.”

 

Duke and other members rebutted by pointing out that many well-respected countries around the world use online age verification methods which are arguably more effective than using an ID at a land-based casino.

 

Frank then took things one step further by saying, “You can protect children, but this is not a protection of children. This is a ban on all activity…The poor children here are being used here by the people who don’t like gambling. It is the death of freedom if you say that because some minority of adults will abuse something, you prohibit it.”

 

Frank is expected to bring the bill back to the committee for a mark-up and a vote in the next couple of weeks. If he is able to get enough votes in committee, then it will finally get the chance to move on to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

 

The full hearing can be viewed online at the House Financial Services Committee website.