New op-ed on online gambling
News on 17 Apr 2017
News on 17 Apr 2017
Respected online gambling writer and analyst Chris Grove lashed out at attempts to resurrect the archaic federal wire act over the weekend, writing a scathing op-ed piece in the Huffington Post.
The article could be perceived as a preemptive attack on the new US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions’ possible review of the 2011 Department of Justice’s legal opinion that the 1961 Wire Act covers only sports betting and was never intended as a catch-all measure to be used by enforcement agency against internet gambling (see previous reports).
Grove points out that there is a noticeable lack of support for the sort of ban that could be imposed through the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, a proposed measure reportedly drafted several years ago by land casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s lobbyists which has thus far found little traction in the US Congress.
Grove also notes that there has been concerted pushback from states’ rights advocates, and overwhelming opposition from the National Governors Association, and claims that federal interference is a matter best left to the individual states is a terrible idea and federal politics at its very worse, killing jobs and job creation and increasing the probability of tax increases.
“New Jersey has realized over $80 million in tax revenue in the last three years from regulated online gambling, ” Grove writes. “Regulation has created or supported some 3,300 new jobs in the state. The flagging casino industry in Atlantic City has been resuscitated by the introduction of online play.”
He goes on to examine legalisation efforts in several states to balance budgets, flagging analyst estimates that possibly half a billion dollars could be generated over the next five years from online gambling if the genre is legalised in Pennsylvania… and at the same time such a development would improve the safety of consumers through operator regulation and licensing.
Americans are already gambling online at foreign websites, and legalisation in New Jersey has been a resounding success in terms of providing safeguards, responsible gaming tools, and other key protections to consumers.
Grove concludes with a condemnation of cronyism, specifically pointing a finger at Adelson as the driving force behind efforts to enact a federal ban on state-regulated online gambling and commenting that it is difficult to see a federal ban as anything more than the fulfilment of Adelson’s wishes to eliminate a product that might compete with his land-based casino empire.
He also notes that scholars and lawyers agree that a federal ban would be unlikely to hold up in court… making the entire exercise a waste of time that will cost real people good jobs and put cash-strapped states in a tougher spot than they already are.
