The war is not yet one.  Online casinos had a great victory at the end of the year just as all seemed lost.  Barney Frank was racing against the clock to get his two online casino bills passed before the enforcement of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.  The law would have gone into play on December 1, 2009.  The two bills proposed by Frank would have delayed the implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the other would have set up a regulatory frame work for online casinos in the United States.

Unfortunately, the House Financial Services Committee was so caught up with problems due to the recession that they never got around to either of Frank’s bills.  But at the last minute, Frank managed to get a letter to the United States Treasury convincing them to place a six month hold on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl did not take kindly to this news.  Senator Kyl was one of the chief Architects of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and a major opponent of online casinos.  In response to the delay of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, Kyl has made every effort to delay the appointment of new offices in the Treasury Department.  This action has received the disapproval of conservative and liberals alike.

“Here we are on December 29, almost a year after the Inauguration, and there is no Under Secretary of the Treasury,” said Paul Volcker, head of the Federal Reserve.  

“How can we run a government in the middle of a financial crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of filling the relevant agencies?”