Californian Assemblyman Trying to Revoke UIGEA
Posted By admin , on May 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM .Category: Casinos
The Californian Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has taken on the quest against the UIGEA legislation. He has successfully managed to bring a bill to investigate a possible legalization of online gambling through a committee and, thus, one step closer to a vote in the legislature. The aim of Levine’s bill is to determine whether UIGEA binds states, or whether states individually can pass their own laws on the online gambling industry. Lloyd Levine has read between the lines of the UIGEA legislation, and has reached the conclusion that there might be an opening in the legal text allowing for individual states to legalize on online gambling as long as both the operator and the player are located within the same state. Levin’s bill, the Gambling Control/California Intrastate Online Poker Act, was passed unanimously last Wednesday by the Committee on Governmental Organizations. This was the first step on a long journey through the legislation apparatus, and nest it will have to stand its test at the state Appropriations Committee.
Levin’s bill is yet another contribution in the growing protest against the UIGEA legislation, which has paralyzed the American online gambling industry since 2006. Many other initiatives have seen the light, but nothing concrete has yet happened. It seems stronger forces are working against the liberators on the field. By having the bill passed, Lloyd Levine hopes to achieve a clarification of whether the murky and confusing language of the UIGEA law in fact allows for intrastate gambling or not. If so, California will be likely to allow for authorization and taxing of legal online casinos. And many more states are expected to follow suit. If not imposing full fledged online casino legalization, at least they are expected to legalize poker play.
The controversy reaches back to the Constitutional Law. When the Constitution was added the Bill of Rights, it sparked a discussion whether this was in deed a necessary amendment. Patrick Henry famously refused to sign the Constitution after this amendment, claiming that a list of what the federal government could not do was unnecessary. He claimed that anything not expressly granted in the Constitution was automatically forbidden to the national government, and by adding the specific list of rights, it became debatable whether rights not expressly listed may be legally infringed. This is the loophole Levine hopes to explore in order to bring about a legalization of online gambling. If he can prove that the ban against online gambling is not part of the rights bill and therefore does not apply to the individual states to follow, he might stand a chance to revoke the ban. However controversial and complicated this bill might be, it certainly will rock some boats before it will be settled.
Tags: gambling control, legislation, online casino, online casinos, online gambling, online poker
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