Republican Representative Joe Barton’s mission to implement the online poker legislation has finally been accomplished when he introduced the Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection and Strengthening of UIGEA Act. The bill, since the past few weeks was making news and the Congress has now finally got the new online poker law.
As per Joe Barton, the Act if passed by the Congress will make online poker legal and will allow people of America to play online poker within the purview of the law. He added that, poker is not a game of chance but requires a lot of skill from the players. He also stated that players employ a lot of strategies to be successful in poker and he sees no reason that it should be banned in the United States.
The bill when adopted will also require the poker operators to work towards protecting the players. Poker operators will have to recognize the problems of the players and should equip them with all the necessary information that would help them. The operators will also have to install some systems that would help the players to restrict their losses. The poker operators will also need to keep a watch on underage players.
The bill in its current form has garnered a lot of support from the same clique of politicians who had earlier supported the Barney Frank’s and Jim McDermott’s online gambling bills. However, the bill is not devoid of criticism as some politicians feel that the bill has excluded some of the vital issues such as protecting players from fraud and other forms of gambling. Considering this, there are chances that the bill will need to be amended.
