New pro-online gambling group enters the fray

The new action group formed to fight Sheldon Adelson’s attempts to have online gambling federally banned in the United States, the Coalition for Consumer and Online Protections (C4COP) has wasted no time in entering the debate, distributing a statement with several arguments against prohibition.

C4COP is well-funded and supported by major land gambling organisations that understand the commercial and safety advantages of legalised and regulated online gambling in the USA, such as the American Gaming Association, MGM International and the Poker Players Alliance.

Arrayed against them is Sheldon Adelson’s equally well-funded Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, which has embarked on several projects designed to persuade US Congressmen and women to revamp the Wire Act in such a way as to impose a ban on online gambling .

In its opening broadside of a counter-campaign, C4COP predicts that a federal ban on online gambling is doomed to failure in the same way that attempts to stop the sale and consumption of liquor failed during Prohibition in the nineteen twenties.

The Hill, a newspaper widely read by Washington DC politicians, was an obvious target for C4COP material, and carried an article Thursday quoting spokesperson Alison Harden.

Harden, supported by website statements, says that a nationwide online gambling ban would be unfair to states like Nevada and New Jersey, whose economies depend on the industry, and would encourage online punters to participate in offshore illegal black markets.

“If the federal ban happens, millions of consumers who are playing right now will risk exposure to the overseas black market,” Harden said, adding that – as was the case during Prohibition – all a ban would accomplish would be the creation of an unsafe black market.

C4COP also contends that federal interference runs the risk of trampling on the right of states to make and implement their own legislation for the control and licensing of gambling.

“A federal ban would step on the states that already have successful gaming programs,” Harden said.