Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006

And if you're wondering what this has to do with gambling, well, so were a lot of us 20 years ago.

But the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA, was attached to that guaranteed to pass bill at the last minute.

Many congress people later said they had no idea it was even in there.

And just like that, online poker in America went from thriving to on the ropes.

... um, and then, a- a- as, you know, we can get into, but I, uh, ultimately end up going, working full-time for the Poker Players Alliance, uh, about a year later, so.

Right.

But so, so what was the Poker Players Alliance's focus prior to, uh, UIGEA passing? What, what sort of things were, were you focused on? Was there already a sense something like this was potentially coming, and it was already the focus before it got passed?

Yeah, there was.

The beginnings were as inadvertent as they come.

Hastily drawn up and jammed into the entirely unrelated Safe Port Act, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act passed through Congress in September of 2006, then with President Bush's signature a month later, became law.

The unremarkable bit of legislation banned gambling companies from taking payments over the internet made in violation of state or federal law.

For the old guard of online gambling, the likes of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker, the new law would prove an existential threat.

Looks like, whoa, a statement of charges.

Something about money laundering, bank fraud, wire fraud, UIGEA violations, possible 75-year sentence.

The money man is Sokolov.

He's not an investor, he's a banker.

So as the minutes on his long, uncomfortable flight tick by, Eccles is doing some light reading.

He's perusing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA.

It's a sweeping US law passed in 2006 that bans banks and credit card companies from working with real money betting sites.

It's the reason HubDub can't monetize, and Eccles is wondering if there's some way around it.