This story from the LA Times sums up what I’ve been saying about the prospects for Internet gaming in the new administration, and raises another possibility that I think is more realistic:
At a time of war and economic troubles, legislation on Internet gambling may not be high on President-elect Barack Obama’s to-do list.
But the issue is about to rear its head in Washington, in Sacramento and perhaps in other states in the coming year.
Internet gambling mogul Ruth Parasol and her husband, Russ DeLeon, retained Fleishman-Hillard Government Relations back in August and paid $30,000 to the firm to lobby on Internet gambling issues in the third quarter of 2008, Fleishman's latest filing shows.Internet_poker
Parasol grew up in Mill Valley in Northern California. But given her business, she is said to make her home overseas, in Gibraltar. Parasol made her millions by co-founding PartyPoker.com.
The business took a turn for the worse when Congress successfully sought to make Internet gambling illegal in 2006. That's no doubt where Fleishman would come in, although lobbyists there have not returned phone calls.
Meanwhile, back in Sacramento, lobbyists are contemplating legislation that would legalize Internet poker to be played solely within the boundaries of California.
Rodney Blonien, who represents California Commerce Club and Hollywood Park Casino, said current federal law would permit intrastate gambling over the Internet. As it is, he estimated, 2 million Californians a week gamble on Internet sites based offshore.
War? Healthcare? Energy? Recession? Let’s play poker | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times.
The best hope for Internet gamers right now is to pursue regulation at the state level. As it is written UIGEA allows a state to permit and regulate Internet gaming within its own borders.
Suppose Nevada did what Blonien suggests California do. There’s already legislation in place to permit Internet gaming. It’s just a matter of ensuring identity (particularly age) and geographic verification. If a casino operator could prove to regulators that they had those problems solved, they could then get licensed and start accepting bets within the state of Nevada.
California wants some of that revenue, but let’s say they don’t want to license and regulate Internet casinos. They then sign a revenue-sharing agreement with Nevada and amend their laws to permit betting at licensed Nevada casinos. Since Internet betting is legal in both states, there can’t be any federal objection, and bettors would be free to use any financial instrument they liked to open accounts.
If this system works well and proves itself to be scandal-free and relatively bug-proof, you’d have an almost bullet-proof case for expanding Internet gaming elsewhere. Seeing as only two states in the US ban all betting, is there really a moral argument against allowing online betting?
You know, I once wrote a book on the topic. Sometimes even I forget about it.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that anything these days gets made or unmade law because of eloquently-stated public policy briefs or carefully considered social and economic arguments. So maybe the industry should just hire more lobbyists. Hey, they should ask for a bailout while they’re at it. It seems to be the way things work these days.