• Reuters/Online Media Daily, Friday, March 6, 2009 11:31 AM

House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank stood up on Thursday and said he would be pushing to repeal the three year-old U.S. ban on online gambling, a piece of legislation which he says has hurt trade ties with the European Union. A House aid confirmed that work on drafting the legislation should be completed this month, as reported Feb. 24 in Online Media Daily.

In 2006, Congress attempted to curtail online gambling in the U.S. by barring businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with unlawful Internet gambling. This includes payments made through credit cards, electronic fund transfers and checks. As a result, European online gambling companies lost billions in market value, as the U.S. represented nearly half of the global market. Supporters of the ban argued that gambling companies took billions out of the U.S. economy, damaged families and facilitated money laundering.

Frank and other advocates for lifting the U.S. ban claim the government could raise nearly $52 billion in revenue over the next decade by overturning it and taxing and regulating the industry instead.

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