A year ago, President George W. Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, 31 U.S.C. §§5361 et seq. That statute did not make Internet gaming illegal, as that was already the position of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) for many years, but rather the statute sought to choke off the transmission of funds between Americans and Internet gaming sites, regardless of where the gaming sites are located. The statute currently prohibits acceptance of credit cards, funds, bank instruments, or proceeds of any other form of financial transaction in connection with unlawful Internet gaming.
Under the statute, the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in consultation with the DOJ, were required to issue regulations to flesh out these gaming and payment prohibitions. Notwithstanding the statutory mandate that these regulations be completed within a year, they were not issued until the beginning of this month, in
