U.S. senator intent on closing the stable door after the (sports betting) horse has bolted

Our readers will no doubt be familiar with the name Orrin Hatch, a US Senator from Utah who has featured fairly prominently in anti-online gambling legalisation initiatives in the past, and a politician who appears to believe that Congress should be overriding individual states’ rights when it comes to legislating on gambling issues.

Prior to the US Supreme Court’s striking down of the restrictive federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in May this year, Hatch was among those who advocated federal rather than state level authority on whether to liberalise US sports betting beyond the four states covered by PASPA, opining that the power should rest with the US Congress, and intimating that he would introduce a federal proposal.

The Supreme Court decision giving legislative authority to individual states would appear to have pre-empted his plans, but reports in US media outlets this week indicate that the Senator is still intent on generating some federal involvement in the nascent US sports betting sector.

Reportedly supported by the National Football League, which fought tooth and nail to retain PASPA in the years when New Jersey was fighting liberalisation through US courts, Hatch again addressed the issue on the Senate floor Thursday.

He lamenting that his colleagues on Capitol Hill had shown little interest in taking the sports betting issue up, as evidenced by the postponement of a House Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for June which was not re-scheduled.

Judging by his comments, Hatch is now approaching the fait accompli of liberalised sports betting on games as an integrity issue, and pledged to come forward with draft legislation creating some sort of federal framework in the near future.

His address lacked detail on how he envisages federal involvement and authority, but he will need to move quickly if his plans are to gain traction…the gambling industry from the American Gaming Association on down, along with many individual US states, has enthusiastically embraced the Supreme Court liberalisation, and companies in several states are already offering sports betting services.

One day after Hatch’s speech on the Senate floor, the American Gaming Association issued a comment, observing that federal oversight of sports betting had been “an abject failure” and recommending that the new, liberalised status quo of US sports betting be respected, leaving individual states to “decide what works best for their constituents.”

This could be the veteran senator’s last hurrah; he has revealed that he will not again seek re-election at the end of his current term, ending a 42-year political career.

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