Neteller Update...

[Hock_]

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Here's the thing to me although this is a non-lawyer's opinion. Either RIGHT NOW THIS VERY MINUTE the law makes Neteller facilitating transactions to the sites remaining in the US market illegal or it does not. It isn't the regs that define what is legal, but how the law can be enforced. So whether or not the regs are effective in carrying out the legal intent of the law or not doesn't matter as far as just the question of legality. Even if Neteller were to exit the US market later, they would still have broken the law right now. Just like a bank robber who stopped robbing banks and later says since he stopped he shouldn't be considered a robber right now. And ditto for the sites still in the US market who might withdraw later.

Neteller has a good reputation for honesty and security, and if they don't want to have their business gutted or undergo the risk of the DoJ having a contrary legal interpreation than them pre or post regs, then they should be seeking to change their coporate domicile to a friendlier place, and probably as well to take themselves private again. Otherwise some other concern will rise up to fill the void and take that business.

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That's not how this statute works, actually. The part about sites accepting unlawful internet wagers was effective immediately upon the signing of the legislation. That's why Party and the others pulled out right away. But the part about screening and blocking transactions is not -- all the statute says is that the Fed must draft regulations directing financial institutions about what they must do. Again, nothing in the statute requiring financial institutions to do anything, only directing the Fed to draft regs, which will then define the financial institutions' obligations. The statute also says that financial institutions can't be held liable as long as they follow those regs and provides the Fed with an out to exempt categories of transactions that the Fed deems to be "impractical" to screen or block. So right now financial institutions not only have no obligation to screen and block, they can actually be held liable if they do screen and block (a non-unlawful internet gambling transaction by mistake).