I respectfully disagree, John. I think this is the worst thing that could have happened to us. This law isn’t only about the banking end – there are specific pieces in this bill that clearly incriminate U.S.-based affiliates. Frist and his legal team were smart enough (I had to give this bastard credit) to strike the illegality of playing games online from the bill, since that would have been easy to challenge in courts, on multiple fronts (1st Amendment, e.g.).
I think the ramifications of this, are that the DOJ will now go on a witch-hunt, attempting to pick off affiliates. To what extent, who knows ? I think that they will make test cases, publicize it well, and try to scare us all, while the banking industry “prepares to comply with the law”. Whereas most state laws didn’t afford them this luxury, this federal law does – several of the more prominent US gaming law experts concur with this.
The ability of the banking end of things remains to be seen. I agree with you that this is a no-win situation for the banks – it will cost them bucks to implement, they lose customers, and they run the risk of erroneously killing transactions, that will ultimately piss-off customers. The banking industry cannot be too happy right now.
Unless some powerful lobbyist-types challenge this law in court, I think the landscape has changed immensely. I cannot believe that some highly profitable and well-capitalized companies would have pulled the plug on US-customers over the last several weeks, without thoroughly researching the legal vs. the business ramifications.
Although there are probably courses of action that we can take to protect ourselves, this is scary terrain at the moment.