The Chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank has said that he will be introducing a bill to overturn the three-year-old US ban on Internet gambling within the next few days. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which hurt US trade ties with the European Union, was introduced in 2006 by Congress when it was run by Republicans. It went into effect on January 19th 2009, as a “midnight rule” during the outgoing Bush administration.

Frank was also the author of the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, introduced in 2007 but never acted upon. It is not yet confirmed what this bill will be about but speculation has revealed that it will remove the ban on online gaming, and regulate and tax it. Some have argued that a bill regulating only online poker stands a better chance. The Skill Game Protection Act which would have exempted poker, bridge, chess and other P2P games from the UIGEA was introduced in 2007 but never actually discussed either.

The success of the US gambling industry limitedly depends on whether professional sports leagues choose to allow betting on games. However, PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that taxing and regulating the internet gambling industry can potentially yield $52 billion for the US Government over ten years.