Senator Jon Kyl, one of the most vocal politicians to call an end to online gambling when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed in the United States in 2006, announced this week that he will not be seeking re-election in 2012.

Kyle was linked to a group of politicians who put great obstacles in the way of United States gamblers who were seeking to wager at online sites by managing to sneak the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act through on the back of an unconnected bill.

Gamblers will definitely not be sorry to see the back of Senator Kyl when he leaves Capital Hill in 2012, especially in view of the fact that in the past few years he was linked to blocking three US Treasury appointments following a delay in implementing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

Senator Kyl is the second-ranking Republican in the United States Senate and will be ending his career as a US lawmaker after three terms spanning 18 years.  He succeeded in using scare tactics to gather support for his anti-gambling stance and was the leading opponent to online gambling in the United States Congress.

In a statement made in 2005 that appeared on the CBS news program “60 Minutes”, Kyle said that online gambling is "So easy to do. It's so easy for kids to do. It's so addictive... Our kids have access to the internet. They're frequently not supervised and you can run up a huge debt on your folk's credit card."

Kyle expressed his outright disapproval to a bill proposed by Congressman Barney Frank in 2007 to legalize and regulate internet gambling in the United States and said “The Frank bill is unacceptable to the State Attorneys General and it ought to be unacceptable to Members of Congress as well. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Frank bill or any similar proposals that would create a permissive Federal licensing scheme for internet gambling.”

Members of the Poker Community feel that Senator Kyl has been the leading opponent in the Senate to legislation regulating online poker and that another hurdle will be crossed with his departure.  They are hoping that Arizona will replace him with someone who is friendlier to the cause.