Regulators struggling with Internet gambling rules - Scientific American

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve and Treasury officials said on Wednesday they were struggling to craft rules to ban bank and credit card payments to illegal Internet gambling sites because federal law is unclear about what type of gambling is illegal online.

"That is something we're really struggling with," Louise Roseman, the Fed's director of reserve bank operations and payment systems, told a House Financial Services subcommittee.

"The challenge we have is interpreting ... federal laws that Congress itself isn't sure what they mean," Roseman said.

Congress passed a bill in 2006, when Republicans were still in control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, that prohibits companies from accepting payments in connection with "unlawful Internet gambling."

It also instructed the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, in consultation with the Justice Department, to come up with rules to enforce the act.

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