The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is to take effect on December 1st 2009. The Act is a subsection of the Safe Port Act which was passed in 2006 and according to the UIGEA it is illegal for financial institutions to undertake any transactions to and from online casinos.

The online gambling industry was thoroughly shaken up even before the full fledged enforcement of the Act and saw a number of online gambling providers pulling out of the US market. Partypoker and Microgaming, two of the most powerful online gambling providers jumped ship. Both companies suffered immense losses at the time. And in less than two weeks, the UIGEA will be enforced and financial institutions will have no other go but to desist processing of all online gambling payments or suffer the consequences.

Several of the largest online payment processors for US Casinos are already a target for law enforces and it is believed that soon credit card payments will be ancient. E-wallets like UseMyWallet and eWalletXpress are expected to become the only plausible and consistent methods of making online deposits.

Although online gambling will take much more time to be completely wiped out from the US, making deposits will become a much harder task. Banks and other financial institutions will be obliged to block any form of gambling related payments and the government will step in if the law is not abided by. Players will be excused from legal penalization but banks will not and will suffer fines or worse. Barney Frank, from the House of Representatives is putting all efforts to prevent the UIGEA from its course of actions and with 63 co-sponsors the bill for the legalization and regulation of online gambling could see the light of day. But till then UIGEA control bank activities, online gambling providers and players trying to make deposits, with an iron fist. Only time will tell if Frank’s Bill will be able to set things right in the world of online gambling in the US.