Today is the big day, the UIGEA was written and approved in 2006 by a mostly Republican Senate in the U.S., in the four years after, the legislation was fought by many. On December 2009 the implementation date of the legislation was delayed for half year, the 6 months of delay are over today, but what does it mean for the online casino and online poker industry?

Online gambling and online poker are technically not illegal, the UIGEA only imposes penalties on financial institutions that process payments for online gambling, the law does not categorizes online gambling and online poker as illegal. Nobody knows exactly what will happen today, but there are plenty of people with speculation.

Speculations on the introduction of the legislation range from virtually no impact to full closures of U.S. online casino accounts. The most prominent figures in the online casino industry are confident that the anti-gambling legislation will cause no problems for the industry. The Poker Players Alliance, a non-profit organization that protects the rights of online poker players, called the UIGEA a "bump in the road" for legalized gambling, and he predicted that new payment methods will be available before poker itself is legalized. He said: "I do not think this is the end of internet poker as we know it."

The UIGEA is a confusing law, many online casino players do not understand the law and assume that the UIGEA banned online gambling completely. What contributes to this belief is the fact that many leading online casino gambling companies refuse to do business in the U.S. for fear of being persecuted under rules of the UIGEA. Some people say that since the UIGEA does not make gambling illegal, it is a political trick is to eliminate foreign operators and create a gambling monopoly to generate billions in revenue for the U.S. government. Not even a very strange claim, since the new California bill will only license casino operators in California.

Online gambling is still legal in the U.S., it is only prohibited for financial institutions to process online gambling payments. Over the next few weeks we will inform you about the legal developments in the U.S.