A handful of US states are in a race to legalize online gambling within their jurisdictions before the federal government even gets around to voting on new legislation to regulate the industry. One US state, Iowa has already passed legislation to legalize online poker for the thousands of players within the state. The legislation will only allow Iowans to play poker online against other players within the state, but it is the first step to legal online gambling throughout the US.

Legal opinions are that if the UIGEA is implemented, it would only affect states where only gamblingis illegal. Any state with legal online gambling regulations will not be affected by the UIGEA and the federal government will not be able to go after transactions related to online gambling that take place at financial institutions within the state or that involve players from the state. As the federal government continues to slowly move legislation through Congress, states are already drafting the legislation to allow their citizens to gamble freely over the Internet. Many states have interest in allowing some form of online gambling. Unfortunately, most of the states are still interested in protecting their government owned casinos or licensed operators.

Unfortunately, the individual states have different interpretations of what legal online gambling
would be like for their residents. Almost every state is interested in online gambling on a local
level while restricting residents from gambling offshore. Any restriction against offshore gambling
will likely be added to state legislation to legalize online gambling. This restriction will likely
fail as residents easily find ways to access online casinos outside of their local jurisdiction.

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