The online gambling prohibition measures called upon by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), are still awaiting to see the light of day. In fact, they may never see the light of day, if resistance to implementation of enforcement protocols continues to grow. You may recall in previous news articles here at Online Casino portal that a growing number of U.S. politicians, the American Banking Association and credit union bodies are beginning to speak out about the inherent faults in the UIGEA. Well, they've gone even further.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Barney Frank, along with other prominent supporters of his bill, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (HR 5767), have drafted a letter to the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, calling for them to halt any implementation of enforcement protocols called upon by the UIGEA. Supporters of HR 5767 have stepped up pressure against the Treasury Department, warning that any attempt to enforce the UIGEA would amount to a "Sisyphean task".

In other words, trying to stop online casino gambling would be a never-ending, futile battle. Using a timely analogy, it would be like fighting terrorists in Iraq. I'm not saying that online gamblers are terrorists or that online gambling revenue is used to fund terrorism, but you get the point.

Interestingly enough, the original drafters of the UIGEA claimed there are links between online gambling and terrorism and cited family values as their "fighting cause". However, even more interestingly enough, these Congressman had received generous campaign donations from land-based casino gambling lobbyists like Harrah's and alcohol/cigarette interests. Now, there's family values for you. As Barack Obama would say, "politics and usual".

As for this letter of warning delivered to the Federal Reserve's Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Department's Henry Paulson Jr., let's just say it stated that any attempt to enforce an online gambling prohibition would be foolish. Reminding the agencies of their major priorities already tasked to oversee, tackling an additional responsibility as large as policing online casinos and financial processors would not only be impossible, but would place a serious toll on agency assets and funding. In addition to Congressman Frank, the letter was signed by Frank Gutierrez of Illinois, Ron Paul of Texas and Peter King of New York.