Adelson pushes back on internet gambling

There are signs this week that Sheldon Adelson’s Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling is moving up a gear amid reports that political attempts to push a banning bill through the US House of Representatives in the dying moments of the current Congressional session have failed (see previous reports).

Neither the tactics nor the message appear to have changed very much; there’s an attempt to distribute a letter from the FBI to politicians, warning of the alleged dangers of money laundering and criminal activity, and there are a series of Youtube vids from retreaded US politicians with the now time-worn Adelson anti-online gambling message of hypothetical doom and gloom.

The videos feature well-known Adelson followers and CSIG luminaries Blanche Lincoln, Willie Brown, Wellington Webb and George Pataki – all former politicians at municipal, state or national levels – rather inexpertly and with a cloying musical background presenting Adelson’s questionable arguments against online gambling.

It’s a gentler approach from the original in-your-face negativity the campaign initially used, but the content is essentially the same – the alleged dangers of underage and problem gambling and criminal activity; FBI concerns on money laundering and even terrorism; and the alleged threat to the poverty-stricken, delivered in some cases with a clever racial spin.

View the vids here:

Former Arkansas senator Blanche Lincoln

Former mayor of Denver Wellington Webb

Former New York governor George Pataki

Former Mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown

The latter is especially noteworthy coming from an individual who was in the past associated with online gambling firms – he claims until he had a road-to-Damascus-like epiphany on the evils of the industry. In his vid he spends a fair amount of time explaining his about-turn.

The very generalised and hypothetical content plays to the emotional, but it is doubtful whether it will really resonate with hardnosed and cynical lawmakers…unless they can find political value in being swayed by the Adelson arguments.

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