Could be bad news for the over 20 million online poker players According to
thehill.com yesterday the online gambling poker bill is back and alive.
Controversial language to curb illegal gambling on the Internet snuck back
into the defense authorization bill over the weekend. While the language in
the bill was not finalized as of press time last night, the insertion of the
Internet gaming language could be a big win for Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist (R-Tenn.). But that potential victory hung in the balance on Monday as
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) continued his threats to postpone a
vote on the overarching bill until negotiators from both chambers include
unrelated measures on immigration and court security. “The Speaker will not
move this bill until these critical security measures are included in it,”
Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean said yesterday. Conferees were still ironing
out defense-related issues yesterday, but lawmakers are now fighting to
include a number of non-defense items in the must-pass bill that has become
a regular vehicle for pet projects. The Internet gaming language would
create an additional enforcement mechanism for federal officials to crack
down on money transferred from banks, credit card companies and other
financial institutions to gambling outfits overseas. Internet gambling is
already illegal in most of the country, with the major exceptions of Nevada,
Indian reservations and other smaller locales where residents have voted to
change the law.
The fight in Congress to enact further enforcement methods has persisted
since former GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff fought to defeat a bill offered by
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) in the summer of 2000.
Goodlatte combined his language with a bill introduced by Rep. Jim Leach
(R-Iowa) that passed the House earlier this year.
The language included in the defense reauthorization bill appeared to mirror
Leach’s language, numerous outside lobbyists said over the weekend. Sen. Jon
Kyl (R-Ariz.) has been pushing a companion to the Leach bill, which is far
narrower than Goodlatte’s legislation that would, among other things, revamp
the 1961 Wire Act.
Frist has been working hard to include some version of the Internet gaming
language in the defense reauthorization bill in what a number of outside
lobbyists see as a push to ingratiate himself with social conservatives and,
more specifically, Leach, whose endorsement would be a big boost during the
Iowa primary.
Frist co-hosted a field hearing on Internet gaming with Leach earlier this
fall in Iow.
The Internet gaming issue is far from settled because conference
negotiations do not end until all the negotiators have signed off on an
agreement.
This move to include an Internet gambling curb comes after Senate Armed
Services Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the
committee’s ranking Democrat, rebuffed Frist’s attempts to include it in the
bill because it is not related to defense policy.
K Street has been watching the back-and-forth on Internet gambling intently.
Wall Street, in particular, has already priced Internet gambling stocks to
reflect some of the possibility that Congress will approve the legislation.
A unit of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co, an Arlington, Va.-based
investment firm, has been tracking the legislation closely as it related to
various Internet gambling companies. In a report last week, the firm wrote
that “failure to attach a gaming provision to the DOD authorization bill
likely means that proponents have missed their last best chance to pass
anti-gaming provisions.before senators head home for the final campaign
stretch run.”
Hastert has told negotiators that he will not move the bill unless there is
authorizing language to boost the security of judges in and out of
courtrooms, eases the process of deporting convicted gang members, and bars
their indefinite detention.
Senate leaders promised to include the courtroom language, which was part of
a larger child safety that passed the House earlier this year, on must-pass
bill some time this year, a House GOP leadership aide said yesterday.
Hastert has made a bill political issue of this push following the brutal
murder of the family of a federal judge in Chicago earlier this year. Sen.
Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) has also pressed for the legislation.
On the immigration language, House leaders said they have borrowed language
included in the Senate’s own comprehensive immigration bill that was
approved this past spring.
Senate Democrats are critical of the gang-related measure, and the American
Civil Liberties Union said the measure is too broad and could negatively
impact legal immigrants. A spokesman for Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) refused
to comment on the issue.
House leaders hope to include other border security provisions in a spending
bill for the Department of Homeland Security. At least one Republican
conferee has criticized that move.
At a National Press Club briefing yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and a
member of the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, criticized the
House’s decision to enact its some immigration measures by including them in
the 2007 homeland security defense appropriations bill.
“The House of Representatives doesn’t think much of the bicameral system,”
Specter said. “The Senate and House passed bills, but somehow we can’t go to
conference on them. Now the House wants to take their key provisions and
enact them, which would take all the leverage away from the Senate bill.”
He said that the Senate has pending provision for a fence running along the
southwest border, but that he is not for the “fence piecemeal.
The proposed Frist, Senator Jon Kyl bill to the Senate the online casino
anti-internet gaming bill leaves out horse racing, and lotteries so the bill
will that way be supporting online horse racing, and lotteries ALLOT – so it
would be total okay to gamble online on horse racing but online poker will
get banned – what an insane bill!.
A huge scientific poll conducted in March 2006 of over 30,000 likely voters
establishes that Americans overwhelmingly DO NOT want the federal government
enacting laws that restrict a recreational activity such as online gambling,
an activity that many adult Americans have decided to do from their own
homes. Almost 80 percent of Americans are opposed to the pending bills in
Congress to ban online gambling.
A recent CNBC poll showed also that over 90 percent of Americans would like
to see online gambling poker regulated in the U.S. and NOT prohibited!
Studies have shown that regulation and taxation of online poker could net
the federal government over $3.3 billion in revenue annually and another $1
billion for the states on internet gambling.
OVER 80 countries worldwide including the UK, are right now starting to
legalized and regulated online gambling and online poker gambling.
Senate should use its litle time left this year on other importen things
instead of banning online poker.
Telling American adults how to use their hard-earned money, whether on
e-bay, hors
e racing or on playing online poker after a hard days work,
should simply not be the federal government’s job.
Over 20 Million peaple in USA enjoy online poker- that’s 20 miilion votes.
