Adelson widens attack on internet gambling

Las Vegas Sands land gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson (80), who has already angered the internet gambling community with his attacks in the Forbes and Bloomberg publications, widened his assault Thursday with the launch of an anti-online gambling website and a Youtube video.

StopInternetGambling.com features a provocative introduction that reads:

“Click your mouse and lose your house” isn’t a marketing slogan for internet gambling advocates. But it should be. Over the past year, the States of Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware have passed laws legalizing internet gambling, and other states, like Pennsylvania and California, as well as Congress are now considering proposals to allow internet poker, blackjack, slots and other games. In the history of bad ideas, this has to be one of the worst! And public polling suggests that voters all across America are overwhelmingly against it.”

The website also reiterates a call for a federal ban on internet gambling to combat this “threat to society”, and links to a complementary vid that Las Vegas Sands has posted on Youtube here:

The vid places emphasis on the dangers its says are presented by the accessibility and convenience of online gambling and claims that “unscrupulous” online gambling operators target the young and the elderly.

The website and vid suggest that Adelson has embarked on a planned and integrated public attack in an attempt to combat the growing trend toward regulation and legalisation in US states, and the recent introduction of a federal legalisation measure in Congress by Rep. Peter King .

Adelson would appear to be swimming upstream, largely unaccompanied by most of his peers, who have acknowledged the potential of properly regulated and licensed online gambling in the United States. These include the American Gaming Association, which favours a federal “online poker only” solution.

Related and similar