Posted on: Tuesday, 20 March 2007, 06:00 CDT
Repealing Bogus Web Gambling 'Ban'
When Democrats took control of Congress this year, they promised to correct what they considered the failures of Republican leadership and policy.
Efforts to change President Bush's strategies in Iraq are commanding the national spotlight, but whispers of a separate campaign to reverse a GOP cause are working their way through the Capitol. A handful of lawmakers are interested in repealing the federal ban on Internet wagering that was signed into law just a few months ago by President Bush.
We use the word "ban" loosely, here. In making it illegal for Americans to use personal checks, credit cards or electronic funds transfers to pay off wagers placed with Internet casinos and sports books, Congress carved out exemptions for Web-based betting on horse racing and state lotteries. The law also allows state-licensed casinos to create Web sites with online poker and other games of chance, and lets them provide links to other jurisdictions where gambling is legal.
So the "ban," passed by Republicans to please anti-gambling conservatives and "values" voters upset that their neighbors might be placing wagers from their laptops, merely cuts off Americans from offshore casinos. The only interest that gains protection from this law is the American gaming industry.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Financial Times last week that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is "preposterous" and one of the "stupidest" bills ever passed. He said he's interested in overturning the law, which had such weak support in Congress that it couldn't pass as a stand-alone bill. It had to be slipped into port security legislation to get to the president's desk.
"There's no draft, no text - this is very much still in the thinking stage," Rep. Frank's spokesman, Steve Adamske, said Wednesday.
Nevada's delegation pounced on the news from Rep. Frank and set about reviving their counter to the Republican legislation. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., want the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an 18-month study on online betting and whether it can be regulated.
Their proposal should attract interest from Democratic leadership, which desperately wants more tax revenue to spend on social programs but doesn't want to fullfil Republican campaign predictions that they'd raise taxes. The chance to confiscate a huge chunk of the $12 billion to $15 billion wagered online each year might be too tantalizing to resist.
Congress should repeal its Internet gambling "ban," but not because this 21st-century form of commerce needs to be taxed. It's foolish for lawmakers to believe they can simply make an extremely popular, leisure-oriented industry vanish with a stroke of their pens. Every kind of business has or wants a way to do business over the Internet, and that's never going to change.
This law was a mistake, but Congress shouldn't answer it by making another one. Lawmakers should overturn the bogus Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, then get out of the way.
(c) 2007 Las Vegas Review - Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Las Vegas Review - Journal
Repealing Bogus Web Gambling 'Ban'
When Democrats took control of Congress this year, they promised to correct what they considered the failures of Republican leadership and policy.
Efforts to change President Bush's strategies in Iraq are commanding the national spotlight, but whispers of a separate campaign to reverse a GOP cause are working their way through the Capitol. A handful of lawmakers are interested in repealing the federal ban on Internet wagering that was signed into law just a few months ago by President Bush.
We use the word "ban" loosely, here. In making it illegal for Americans to use personal checks, credit cards or electronic funds transfers to pay off wagers placed with Internet casinos and sports books, Congress carved out exemptions for Web-based betting on horse racing and state lotteries. The law also allows state-licensed casinos to create Web sites with online poker and other games of chance, and lets them provide links to other jurisdictions where gambling is legal.
So the "ban," passed by Republicans to please anti-gambling conservatives and "values" voters upset that their neighbors might be placing wagers from their laptops, merely cuts off Americans from offshore casinos. The only interest that gains protection from this law is the American gaming industry.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Financial Times last week that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is "preposterous" and one of the "stupidest" bills ever passed. He said he's interested in overturning the law, which had such weak support in Congress that it couldn't pass as a stand-alone bill. It had to be slipped into port security legislation to get to the president's desk.
"There's no draft, no text - this is very much still in the thinking stage," Rep. Frank's spokesman, Steve Adamske, said Wednesday.
Nevada's delegation pounced on the news from Rep. Frank and set about reviving their counter to the Republican legislation. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., want the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an 18-month study on online betting and whether it can be regulated.
Their proposal should attract interest from Democratic leadership, which desperately wants more tax revenue to spend on social programs but doesn't want to fullfil Republican campaign predictions that they'd raise taxes. The chance to confiscate a huge chunk of the $12 billion to $15 billion wagered online each year might be too tantalizing to resist.
Congress should repeal its Internet gambling "ban," but not because this 21st-century form of commerce needs to be taxed. It's foolish for lawmakers to believe they can simply make an extremely popular, leisure-oriented industry vanish with a stroke of their pens. Every kind of business has or wants a way to do business over the Internet, and that's never going to change.
This law was a mistake, but Congress shouldn't answer it by making another one. Lawmakers should overturn the bogus Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, then get out of the way.
(c) 2007 Las Vegas Review - Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Las Vegas Review - Journal
