You Can Make it Illegal, but You Can’t Stop
Them Playing
August 9, 2009
It is actually somewhat amusing when you think about it. The US
Government was so sure of their power over the people that they passed the
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act or UIGEA to stop people from
participating in online poker and gambling. The only problem is that it
didn’t stop it – instead it increased the number of people willing to go on.
Some say it is because people don’t want something until you tell them they
can’t have it – which may be true. Or it could simply be that most people
were not aware of what the online gambling and poker playing world was all
about and by making it illegal they brought it to their attention. Either
way, the number of players has increased since the UIGEA was passed.
There are some places that won’t allow US citizens to play, but they are
becoming less and less as it looks like it might be legal again. Poker
players have always maintained that the UIGEA did not refer to them, and
that it was something that only online gambling patrons had to worry about.
That changed when the government seized the accounts of online poker players
to the tune of millions of dollars.
However, it still does not stop them. A recent study said that more than ten
million Americans still play poker and gambling online, as compared to two
million for the United Kingdom and 1.3 million in France. Perhaps they need
to pass the UIGEA as well and then poker players will come out of the
woodwork there too.
