UIGEA update

Six weeks after Congress passed its anti-gambling legislation, there are still more questions than answers about the future of online poker.

It's likely that the real force of the law will be to dry up the money supply by making it more difficult to make deposits. But we don't have a good idea of what our alternatives will be.

What company will emerge as the dominant payment processor? How will we transfer money into the sites? How effective this law will be? Will efforts to carve out a provision for Internet poker be successful?

So far, after the initial fallout of sites rushing to ban U.S. players, it's been business as usual. Where we play may have changed, but only a few people quit logging in as a result.

I found this link about possible WTO fallout insightful (thanks Chilly). If the U.S. and its businesses have to pay a price for this law, we might see political attitudes toward gambling change. The WTO may be our best shot at legalization.

The problem is that the WTO case -- and any other efforts to pass new laws in Congress -- will take time that we don't have. It's widely believed that Neteller will leave the U.S. market if it is determined to be a gambling site by the government. Many other mainstream payment processors such as Firepay already took that step.

What will happen? This 2+2 thread gives a decent analysis of what the law will actually do.

Unless Neteller is bought by a private investor and stays open for business, the most pressing issue for poker players is finding a new funding source.

It seems like ePassporte may become one option, as it's now a pretty widely accepted and privately owned option for deposits. But ePassporte's fees are high ($5 for every $100), and transactions are limited to $500.

There has also been talk about using phone cards to make deposits. While feasible, I'm not sure that method is palatable for most players.

Surely the poker sites are planning for alternate deposit methods. Right?