Bush urged to stop ban on online gambling - Financial Times

[I Heart Gambling Online]

Lawmakers and lobbyists were yesterday urging the White House to freeze the implementation of proposed regulations prohibiting online gambling after the banking industry said the rules were ambiguous and unworkable.

Barney Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House financial services committee, said he was "deeply disappointed" that the Bush administration was moving forward with so-called "midnight rulemaking" that would burden the financial industry at a time of economic crisis and tie the hands of the incoming president, Barack Obama.

The new rules, which were proposed following the 2006 passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, would require financial companies with designated payments systems to have procedures in place to prevent payments being made to illegal gambling businesses. According to the US Treasury, illegal gambling consists of any bet or wager involving the internet that is illegal in the state in which the bet is made.

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