i thought the '270 days' bit to come up with an enforcement strategy is friggin' hillarious. wouldn't it make more sense to figure out how you're going to enforce the law before you enact it? personally i still think this is all a lot of hot air. They're making something illegal (with the credit cards) that you couldn't do anyway, and with the bank transactions (debit cards i'm assuming) that should be quite easy to get around. btw i also found it quite amusing that the only way they suggested they could prevent third party transactions (i.e. neteller) would be to blacklist them, ultimatly strong arming them into submission. that's soooo what this country's all about. but the main reason why i am hesitent to believe all this hype is because, if this legislation was really serious about preventing US residents from playing online poker, it would incude forcing ISP's to block american players from accessing these sites. Until i see such a bill (which i doubt we will as they were unable to do it with online file sharing, which involved copywrite infringement, a far more serious crime then gambling, and which also provided far less taxable revenue) I can't help but think that all of what we are now seeing is simply the first step of the US gov't liscensing a limited number of online
casinos. SO much of this seems to be about 'offshore' accounts, which the US has no ability to regulate, let alone take a slice of. Will this have no effect on the industry? Will we still be playing at all the same sites that we know and love? Of course not. But will we still be playing online poker in 1, 5, 10 years if we so choose? If i were a gambling man, i'd bet we will be, in one capacity or another.
-n
