Before everyone panics . . . . .
- Thread starter The Judge
- Start date
my understanding is that he can " line item veto" any portion of the bill..:sadwave:
if he wants...:shrug:
He wouldn't veto it, even if he could. most people who aren't involved in gambling or poker, don't really care, so why would Bush?
The hypocrisy of it, isn't enough to get people upset. US gamblers have to unite and create lobbying groups and write letters etc. or else nobody will ever notice.
Besides, I think he has only vetoed one thing in his tenure, and is not likely to veto somethig his buddy Frist created.
Also I do think the line-item veto is not allowed anymore.
It is all so discouraging.
The hypocrisy of it, isn't enough to get people upset. US gamblers have to unite and create lobbying groups and write letters etc. or else nobody will ever notice.
Besides, I think he has only vetoed one thing in his tenure, and is not likely to veto somethig his buddy Frist created.
Also I do think the line-item veto is not allowed anymore.
It is all so discouraging.
don't like the looks of this--hope neteller isn't next
FireOne to block U.S. gamblers after ban
Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:44 AM BST
LONDON (Reuters) - Payment processor FireOne Group (FPA.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it would stop dealing with U.S. online gamblers after President George W. Bush signs a bill into law banning payments for online gaming there.
"The act will have a significant negative impact on the business ... and consequently the company has embarked upon a restructuring of its operations and cost base," it added.
At the start of this month, U.S. Congress unexpectedly approved a bill making it illegal for companies to accept bets over the Internet or for credit card companies to process payments for online gambling.
The gaming industry considers it inevitable that Bush will sign the act into law, and many companies have already said they are pulling out of the United States.
Share prices crashed across the sector last week as a result, wiping out around $7 billion (3.7 billion pounds) of company values.
FireOne, which is 76 percent-owned by Canadian payments firm Optimal Group (OPMR.O: Quote, Profile, Research), said: "The company ... will consider additional card-not-present payment processing opportunities outside of online gambling."
FireOne shares closed at 65 pence on Monday, having fallen from 177 pence before the act was passed, valuing the group at around 36 million pounds.
FireOne to block U.S. gamblers after ban
Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:44 AM BST
LONDON (Reuters) - Payment processor FireOne Group (FPA.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it would stop dealing with U.S. online gamblers after President George W. Bush signs a bill into law banning payments for online gaming there.
"The act will have a significant negative impact on the business ... and consequently the company has embarked upon a restructuring of its operations and cost base," it added.
At the start of this month, U.S. Congress unexpectedly approved a bill making it illegal for companies to accept bets over the Internet or for credit card companies to process payments for online gambling.
The gaming industry considers it inevitable that Bush will sign the act into law, and many companies have already said they are pulling out of the United States.
Share prices crashed across the sector last week as a result, wiping out around $7 billion (3.7 billion pounds) of company values.
FireOne, which is 76 percent-owned by Canadian payments firm Optimal Group (OPMR.O: Quote, Profile, Research), said: "The company ... will consider additional card-not-present payment processing opportunities outside of online gambling."
FireOne shares closed at 65 pence on Monday, having fallen from 177 pence before the act was passed, valuing the group at around 36 million pounds.
- Mar 2, 2006
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A couple interesting excerpts from an article I read today, from The Economist Oct 5 issue (published in Britain - please excuse their proper English):
But it is harder to get banks to stop determined gamblers from using their money to pay online firms. The most glaring gap in the law is that it is based on the fiction that most payments are made using credit-card systems, which can easily identify where payments are going using existing merchant and transaction codes. Although banks can use these codes to identify online gambling firms and their intermediaries, they cannot readily do the same for other sorts of transactions, many of which are likely to be exempted from the final regulations.
?Banks have no way now of reading who the payee is on paper cheques,? according to Nelson Rose, a gambling expert at the Whittier Law School in California. ?Banks tried to defeat this bill, not because they cared about patrons' privacy, but because they knew that it would cost them billions of dollars to set up systems to read paper cheques.?
In prompting a rush for the exits by the most visible?and arguably the best behaved?online gambling operators, the law seems instead to have cleared the field for dodgy operators. ?You will quickly see a flight of gamblers to unregulated sites,? says Leighton Vaughan Williams, head of the betting research unit at Britain's Nottingham Business School. ?I can't see it having a big effect in stopping gambling.?
Even America's casinos, which long campaigned for the prohibition of online gambling for fear it would cannibalise their business, have begun to lean towards legalisation because they see attempts at prohibition as futile. Many now think that online offerings may help them attract customers. That realisation seems to be reflected in the valuations of American casinos: a group of private equity investors is offering just over $15 billion to buy Harrah's, the world's largest casino operator.
One of the more ironic consequences of the new law is that it may have made British-based online gambling companies vulnerable to takeover by America's casino groups. Not only have the firms' share prices fallen heavily, but their withdrawal from the United States has legitimised them as prey to American operators seeking to quickly obtain online expertise and knowledge of overseas markets.
If such acquisitions come to pass, it seems more than likely that American online gambling firms would begin to lobby American politicians to legalise online gambling. Thus, America's prohibition may ultimately have the unexpected consequence of moving the country one step closer to legalising online gambling.
But it is harder to get banks to stop determined gamblers from using their money to pay online firms. The most glaring gap in the law is that it is based on the fiction that most payments are made using credit-card systems, which can easily identify where payments are going using existing merchant and transaction codes. Although banks can use these codes to identify online gambling firms and their intermediaries, they cannot readily do the same for other sorts of transactions, many of which are likely to be exempted from the final regulations.
?Banks have no way now of reading who the payee is on paper cheques,? according to Nelson Rose, a gambling expert at the Whittier Law School in California. ?Banks tried to defeat this bill, not because they cared about patrons' privacy, but because they knew that it would cost them billions of dollars to set up systems to read paper cheques.?
In prompting a rush for the exits by the most visible?and arguably the best behaved?online gambling operators, the law seems instead to have cleared the field for dodgy operators. ?You will quickly see a flight of gamblers to unregulated sites,? says Leighton Vaughan Williams, head of the betting research unit at Britain's Nottingham Business School. ?I can't see it having a big effect in stopping gambling.?
Even America's casinos, which long campaigned for the prohibition of online gambling for fear it would cannibalise their business, have begun to lean towards legalisation because they see attempts at prohibition as futile. Many now think that online offerings may help them attract customers. That realisation seems to be reflected in the valuations of American casinos: a group of private equity investors is offering just over $15 billion to buy Harrah's, the world's largest casino operator.
One of the more ironic consequences of the new law is that it may have made British-based online gambling companies vulnerable to takeover by America's casino groups. Not only have the firms' share prices fallen heavily, but their withdrawal from the United States has legitimised them as prey to American operators seeking to quickly obtain online expertise and knowledge of overseas markets.
If such acquisitions come to pass, it seems more than likely that American online gambling firms would begin to lobby American politicians to legalise online gambling. Thus, America's prohibition may ultimately have the unexpected consequence of moving the country one step closer to legalising online gambling.
Bush signs port security, Internet bill By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
6 minutes ago
President Bush signed a bill Friday to help prevent terrorists from sneaking a nuclear, chemical or germ weapon into the United States inside one of the 11 million shipping containers that enter the nation each year ? many without inspection.
"We're going to protect our ports. We're going to defend this homeland, and we're going to win this war on terror," Bush said.
The president used the bill-signing ceremony to assert that Republicans are tough on terror, a key issue in congressional elections just less than four weeks away.
He didn't mention an unrelated provision that seeks to put teeth into laws that forbid most online gambling. Instead, Bush focused on the multiple ways the legislation tightens security and closes a loophole in anti-terror defenses, especially at ports.
He noted that the SAFE Port Act authorizes the development of high-tech inspection equipment so customs agents can check cargo containers for dangerous materials without having to open them. It requires radiation-detection technology at 22 of the nation's busiest ports by the end of next year.
"We'll do everything we can to prevent an attack, but if the terrorists succeed in launching an attack, we'll be ready to respond," Bush said.
The president said the bill codifies the Container Security Initiative, which deploys U.S. inspectors to dozens of foreign ports on five continents where they can screen cargo bound for the United States. He said it also codifies the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, a joint public-private sector initiative in which private shippers agree to improve their own security measures and in return can receive benefits, including expedited clearance through U.S. ports.
Bush also noted that the bill provides additional authority for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which was established to guard against the threat of terrorists smuggling a nuclear device into the country. And the act requires the Department of Homeland Security to establish a plan to speed the resumption of trade in the event of a terrorist attack on a U.S. port or waterway.
"This bill makes clear that the federal government has the authority to clear waterways, identify cleanup equipment and re-establish the flow of commerce following a terrorist attack," the president said.
6 minutes ago
President Bush signed a bill Friday to help prevent terrorists from sneaking a nuclear, chemical or germ weapon into the United States inside one of the 11 million shipping containers that enter the nation each year ? many without inspection.
"We're going to protect our ports. We're going to defend this homeland, and we're going to win this war on terror," Bush said.
The president used the bill-signing ceremony to assert that Republicans are tough on terror, a key issue in congressional elections just less than four weeks away.
He didn't mention an unrelated provision that seeks to put teeth into laws that forbid most online gambling. Instead, Bush focused on the multiple ways the legislation tightens security and closes a loophole in anti-terror defenses, especially at ports.
He noted that the SAFE Port Act authorizes the development of high-tech inspection equipment so customs agents can check cargo containers for dangerous materials without having to open them. It requires radiation-detection technology at 22 of the nation's busiest ports by the end of next year.
"We'll do everything we can to prevent an attack, but if the terrorists succeed in launching an attack, we'll be ready to respond," Bush said.
The president said the bill codifies the Container Security Initiative, which deploys U.S. inspectors to dozens of foreign ports on five continents where they can screen cargo bound for the United States. He said it also codifies the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, a joint public-private sector initiative in which private shippers agree to improve their own security measures and in return can receive benefits, including expedited clearance through U.S. ports.
Bush also noted that the bill provides additional authority for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which was established to guard against the threat of terrorists smuggling a nuclear device into the country. And the act requires the Department of Homeland Security to establish a plan to speed the resumption of trade in the event of a terrorist attack on a U.S. port or waterway.
"This bill makes clear that the federal government has the authority to clear waterways, identify cleanup equipment and re-establish the flow of commerce following a terrorist attack," the president said.
Yes it is, now back to my hold em game, what do u guys think of the Tigers game with the cold weather?
So, how much of a risk is it now to keep on playing? I have money in my account and they are still taking bets.
I'm not going to put any more in any time soon. Just not sure exactly how this affects everything and I know everyone has written plenty about it.
I wonder how much of a decrease there will be this weekend.
I'm not going to put any more in any time soon. Just not sure exactly how this affects everything and I know everyone has written plenty about it.
I wonder how much of a decrease there will be this weekend.
ZERO RISK. The bill makes it difficult to move money around, which the banks have 270 days to comlly with anyway.
The bill does not make it expressly (or even imply) illegal to gamble.
Continue on as if nothing happened. Things may get difficult soon, but not impossible.
I remember a while back Party Poker used to sell (through a third party) Phone cards that you could use to fund your account, something will be thought of to work around this bill.
Can't they make it illegal to transfer money in and out of your accounts?
Also - do any states have laws that say it is illegal to do online gambling?
Yeah, well as you said im sure their will be plenty of ways around it.
We will see in a year I guess...thanks PF!
Thought this was interesting--this is article prior to bill being passed--was on Fox in june of this year.
eBay Invites Internet Regulation, Backs Online Gambling Ban
by Radley Balko
Radley Balko is a policy analyst specializing in "nanny state" issues and author of the forthcoming study "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Drug Raids in America."
Rep. Bob Goodlatte is in the process of pushing through Congress a bill that would "ban" Internet gambling. I've previously explained why the bill is bad public policy.
But since that column, it has come to light that online auction giant eBay has thrown its support behind Goodlatte's efforts. Why would an Internet company open its arms to congressional regulation of the Internet?
Some speculate that eBay is attempting to win favor with Goodlatte, who also happens to sit on the Congressional Internet Caucus. There's probably some truth to that. But there's another, more likely explanation for eBay selling out the e-commerce world: Good, old-fashioned protectionism.
First, a brief history lesson is in order.
eBay owns PayPal, the popular, online payment system favored by millions of auction sites, membership-based, sites, and bloggers. This wasn't always the case. PayPal was actually founded in the late 1990s by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, two libertarian-minded Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with a revolutionary vision. Thiel and Levchin saw the potential for PayPal to grow into a kind of private currency.
In his book The PayPal Wars, early PayPal marketing guru Eric M. Jackson recounts a stirring speech Thiel gave to the company's early staff.
"PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before," Thiel said. "It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or pounds or yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure."
Unfortunately, that vision never panned out. PayPal thrived when it came to innovating and adapting to stay a step ahead of its early competitors. But the company proved less adept at slaying its more formidable antagonists: Lawyers and politicians.
Class-action suits spurred by trial lawyers attacked the company from one side, while frivolous patent-infringement claims pummeled from the other. State governments piled on next, arguing that the company should be subject to expensive banking regulations.
New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer then struck at the very heart of Thiel and Levchin's vision: Spitzer subpoenaed documents related to PayPal's use in online gaming sites, arguing that the company's refusal to snoop in on what its customers were doing with their own money on their own time was in violation of New York's anti-gambling laws.
A U.S. attorney later followed Spitzer's lead, and invoked the PATRIOT Act to investigate PayPal for suborning illegal activity with respect to Internet gambling.
The young start-up stammered. And fell. In the end, complying with the regulators, appeasing the politicians and fighting off the civil and criminal litigation was too much to bear. Thiel and Levchin abandoned their vision, and sold PayPal to eBay, a company with an established Internet presence, an experienced legal team on staff, and -- to the detriment of PayPal's loyal customers -- a conciliatory corporate culture.
One of the first things eBay did after acquiring PayPal was to reconcile with Spitzer and the Justice Department. eBay paid a $10 million fine and promised to bar PayPal's customers from using the service for online gaming. The company later announced an even more restrictive policy, forbidding customers from using PayPal for adult-oriented products and services, as well as "non-adult services whose Web site marketing can be reasonably misconstrued as allowing adult material or services to be purchased using PayPal," a move that coincided with the Bush administration's war on Internet pornography.
PayPal even suspended the accounts of bloggers who posted content on their sites that the company deemed offensive.
Today, Thiel and Levchin's vision for PayPal is long dead. But it lives on in similar, offshore companies like Neteller and FirePay. These companies are safe and reliable (FirePay is traded on the London Stock Exchange), but aren't subject to U.S. law, and so can be used for all sorts of goods and services the U.S. government has determined Americans aren't grown-up enough to purchase. The most notable of these is Internet gambling.
Once your money leaves your bank account for a Neteller or FirePay "online wallet," there's no way to know how you then spend that money. Your bank doesn't know you've set up an online poker account, or bought a plane ticket or a bottle of wine.
Enter Rep. Goodlatte. Goodlatte's bill bans the use of financial services to facilitate Internet gambling sites. It's already illegal to operate a gaming site on U.S. soil. But most experts agree it's still legal to "place" a bet. Goodlatte wants to put up a wall between the domestic "bet placing" and the offshore "bet taking," which FirePay and Neteller make possible.
If banks and other financial institutions are going to be responsible for policing what their customers do online, as will happen should Goodlatte's bill become law, it's safe to assume that they'll comply by simply banning all transactions with offshore payment services.
Which means that Goodlatte's bill's main effect will be to shield PayPal, a domestic company, from foreign competitors (foreign competitors that, ironically, are doing exactly what PayPal's founders envisioned).
What's more, the letter eBay government relations director Brian Bieron sent to Goodlatte announcing the company's support of his bill actually goes above and beyond what any gambling foes in Congress have called for. Bieron in fact calls for the actual prosecution of Internet gamblers themselves, a policy which could only be enforced by allowing law enforcement officials to essentially begin monitoring everyone's online activity, including tracing visited websites back to IP addresses.
A law similar to what Bieron is advocating hit the books in Washington State this month. It makes online gambling a Class C felony, on par with child pornography.
The funny thing is, even as eBay has joined Rep. Goodlatte's moral crusade against gambling, the company's overseas operations are moving into the gaming business. According to the gaming industry publication igamingnews.com, PayPal Europe has recently entered into agreements with two online gambling services to allow PayPal to be used by Europeans who want to gamble online.
Industry insiders estimate that as much as 4 percent of the U.S. population participates in online gambling. That's about 12 million people. It's likely that a good percentage of those 12 million active, online users also patronize eBay. I wonder what they'd think if they knew that eBay has called for them to be arrested and prosecuted?
This article appeared in Foxnews.com on June 7, 2006
eBay Invites Internet Regulation, Backs Online Gambling Ban
by Radley Balko
Radley Balko is a policy analyst specializing in "nanny state" issues and author of the forthcoming study "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Drug Raids in America."
Rep. Bob Goodlatte is in the process of pushing through Congress a bill that would "ban" Internet gambling. I've previously explained why the bill is bad public policy.
But since that column, it has come to light that online auction giant eBay has thrown its support behind Goodlatte's efforts. Why would an Internet company open its arms to congressional regulation of the Internet?
Some speculate that eBay is attempting to win favor with Goodlatte, who also happens to sit on the Congressional Internet Caucus. There's probably some truth to that. But there's another, more likely explanation for eBay selling out the e-commerce world: Good, old-fashioned protectionism.
First, a brief history lesson is in order.
eBay owns PayPal, the popular, online payment system favored by millions of auction sites, membership-based, sites, and bloggers. This wasn't always the case. PayPal was actually founded in the late 1990s by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, two libertarian-minded Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with a revolutionary vision. Thiel and Levchin saw the potential for PayPal to grow into a kind of private currency.
In his book The PayPal Wars, early PayPal marketing guru Eric M. Jackson recounts a stirring speech Thiel gave to the company's early staff.
"PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before," Thiel said. "It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or pounds or yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure."
Unfortunately, that vision never panned out. PayPal thrived when it came to innovating and adapting to stay a step ahead of its early competitors. But the company proved less adept at slaying its more formidable antagonists: Lawyers and politicians.
Class-action suits spurred by trial lawyers attacked the company from one side, while frivolous patent-infringement claims pummeled from the other. State governments piled on next, arguing that the company should be subject to expensive banking regulations.
New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer then struck at the very heart of Thiel and Levchin's vision: Spitzer subpoenaed documents related to PayPal's use in online gaming sites, arguing that the company's refusal to snoop in on what its customers were doing with their own money on their own time was in violation of New York's anti-gambling laws.
A U.S. attorney later followed Spitzer's lead, and invoked the PATRIOT Act to investigate PayPal for suborning illegal activity with respect to Internet gambling.
The young start-up stammered. And fell. In the end, complying with the regulators, appeasing the politicians and fighting off the civil and criminal litigation was too much to bear. Thiel and Levchin abandoned their vision, and sold PayPal to eBay, a company with an established Internet presence, an experienced legal team on staff, and -- to the detriment of PayPal's loyal customers -- a conciliatory corporate culture.
One of the first things eBay did after acquiring PayPal was to reconcile with Spitzer and the Justice Department. eBay paid a $10 million fine and promised to bar PayPal's customers from using the service for online gaming. The company later announced an even more restrictive policy, forbidding customers from using PayPal for adult-oriented products and services, as well as "non-adult services whose Web site marketing can be reasonably misconstrued as allowing adult material or services to be purchased using PayPal," a move that coincided with the Bush administration's war on Internet pornography.
PayPal even suspended the accounts of bloggers who posted content on their sites that the company deemed offensive.
Today, Thiel and Levchin's vision for PayPal is long dead. But it lives on in similar, offshore companies like Neteller and FirePay. These companies are safe and reliable (FirePay is traded on the London Stock Exchange), but aren't subject to U.S. law, and so can be used for all sorts of goods and services the U.S. government has determined Americans aren't grown-up enough to purchase. The most notable of these is Internet gambling.
Once your money leaves your bank account for a Neteller or FirePay "online wallet," there's no way to know how you then spend that money. Your bank doesn't know you've set up an online poker account, or bought a plane ticket or a bottle of wine.
Enter Rep. Goodlatte. Goodlatte's bill bans the use of financial services to facilitate Internet gambling sites. It's already illegal to operate a gaming site on U.S. soil. But most experts agree it's still legal to "place" a bet. Goodlatte wants to put up a wall between the domestic "bet placing" and the offshore "bet taking," which FirePay and Neteller make possible.
If banks and other financial institutions are going to be responsible for policing what their customers do online, as will happen should Goodlatte's bill become law, it's safe to assume that they'll comply by simply banning all transactions with offshore payment services.
Which means that Goodlatte's bill's main effect will be to shield PayPal, a domestic company, from foreign competitors (foreign competitors that, ironically, are doing exactly what PayPal's founders envisioned).
What's more, the letter eBay government relations director Brian Bieron sent to Goodlatte announcing the company's support of his bill actually goes above and beyond what any gambling foes in Congress have called for. Bieron in fact calls for the actual prosecution of Internet gamblers themselves, a policy which could only be enforced by allowing law enforcement officials to essentially begin monitoring everyone's online activity, including tracing visited websites back to IP addresses.
A law similar to what Bieron is advocating hit the books in Washington State this month. It makes online gambling a Class C felony, on par with child pornography.
The funny thing is, even as eBay has joined Rep. Goodlatte's moral crusade against gambling, the company's overseas operations are moving into the gaming business. According to the gaming industry publication igamingnews.com, PayPal Europe has recently entered into agreements with two online gambling services to allow PayPal to be used by Europeans who want to gamble online.
Industry insiders estimate that as much as 4 percent of the U.S. population participates in online gambling. That's about 12 million people. It's likely that a good percentage of those 12 million active, online users also patronize eBay. I wonder what they'd think if they knew that eBay has called for them to be arrested and prosecuted?
This article appeared in Foxnews.com on June 7, 2006
