Online Gambling: Looks For Help to Stay Alive in the USA
Poker players online may have to fold their hands if a Virginia congressman plays his cards right.
Today, the House Judiciary Committee will strike up a bill introduced by a Virginian Representative (R) that would ban most all online gambling, including even bets on sporting events and games of chance like craps and poker, which have enjoyed a boom these last few years.
The legislation could receive an unexpected boost from a scandal related to a well known lobbyist. The disgraced lobbyist was a key in blocking one of the Representatives three prior attempts at banning Internet gambling, and backlash charges over corruption could spur the current effort.
The bill would update what is called the Federal Wire Wager Act, which prohibits gambling over telephone lines but can not apply to online gambling because not all Web traffic is through the phone lines. It would force banks to block transactions directly related to online gambling and empower law enforcement agencies to require Internet servers to remove or disable links to gambling sites.
He is a big advocate of opening up all kinds of legitimate uses for the Internet and also co-chairman of the Congressional Internet Caucus. He said he opposes gambling because it will lead to a host of ills in society.
The bill would totally prevent state lotteries from moving their games online; the technology just does not exist to keep gambling within a state to state basis. Fantasy sports leagues would be exempt from the new law.
Three House members from Nevada yesterday introduced legislation for an 18month study of online gambling and whether games could be regulated and taxed, as they are in Britain. The Virginia rep. said such regulation could not possibly exist in the US because gambling is regulated at the state, not federal level.
