Casino Observer

There’s a brand new game in town. Just when you thought it was safe to play online, some of the online casinos and poker rooms have run into problems with their check processors. The best have been up-front about these problems. They’ve sent out apologies warning it’s now going to take three to five weeks to pay out on our winnings. Others are just letting the clock tick on and dealing with complaints as and when we make them (great customer relations and service standards at work there, guys).

So what’s the story? In the good old days, moving money into and out of the online casinos and poker rooms used to be same day/next day. Then along came the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006 — jeez, who needs enemies when you got friends like those guys on Capitol Hill! What were they thinking?!? Someone should take an axe to those lobbyists who sweet-talked their pet politicians into passing this anti-gambling measure. And not even honest enough to deal with whatever the problem was supposed to be head on. But keeping their local interests in business by hitting the banks and credit card companies for most of the best online sites — that’s the offshore sites, of course.

At first, it wasn’t so bad with Neteller and MyCitadel still in the game, but when they were forced to pack up their tents and move out of the US, dark days came upon us. Why so dark? Well, the UIGEA was just one of the bricks in the wall. When you put politicians and lawyers to work on a problem, you can bet the result is going to need us to pop a smart pill to get even a vague idea of what’s going on. In this case, we have to go back to the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 — betcha didn’t know that was the full name of the Patriot Act — took a real big crowd of loyal Bushies to come up with that name.

The Patriot Act continued the trend of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 and the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970. You get the idea. So let’s just cut to the chase. The U.S. Treasury packs a lot of heat to investigate all the financial transactions going through banks. Those Treasury wonks can now pick up any payment going to or coming from an institution the government don’t like. Since the government done gone picked out all those internet gaming sites for the finger, the banks have got ever colder feet when it comes to processing payments into and out of them.

The result? Massive delays in processing checks back to us. Well, a big “Thank you, guys!” from all us gamblers.

Write your local congress person and complain about unfair treatment for online gamblers. Make a difference. Make yourself heard. We are not terrorists. We are not money launderers. We are your voters and we’re real upset with you.