Any reversal of UIGEA will take a minimum of 2 years, regardless of what form it takes. Do you guys forget how long it took UIGEA (or some form of anti-gambling legislation to pass) ? It took many years. It will take several years and a Democratic executive to reverse it. The political process is long and slow. The current administration will never reverse it. The only chance for reversal is with an all-Democratic administration & Congress.
That said, the damage has been done, gang. The DOJ has successfully kabashed payment processing via threats, and they have instilled enough fear to scare many of the biggest operators out of the U.S.. The DOJ has dealt the industry a serious blow. The current industry has suffered a great deal from this, and will NOT recover. The damage is irreversible, IMO.
Any reversal of UIGEA will trigger the American giants into the industry, which will dwarf the current operators, and put many of them out of business for good. It is doubtful that any major U.S. operators will have any sort of lucrative affiliate programs, that had existed in this industry to this point. Their brand names will suffice, when it comes to luring players. MGM and Sony are household names, unlike the names of the current operators in the industry. These large corporations will not need lucrative affilifate programs to generate traffic to their sites….the masses will find them easily, unlike what the industry has seen to date. So, I basically agree with John’s assertion.
My advice to all, is to let the past go, and re-tool for the future. Certainly, it really sucks how all this *hit went down this past year. But, there are other ways to make money as an affiliate on the Web – gambling was a good run, but everyone needs to roll with the times, and look for alternative measures. Those who are smart enough to recognize this, will reap the rewards. Those who don’t, will unfortunately die a slow and ugly death.