Washington DC: Online gambling may be shortlived

The decision by the Washington DC Council to permit internet gambling in the district may be short-lived, according to reports in the Washington Post this week.
Councillors are questioning the motives of the original proposer of the plan, Michael A. Brown, suggesting that there needs to be a full vetting of the plan to make the District the first jurisdiction in the nation to allow online money games – including an examination of Brown’s activities.
The newspaper reports that a public hearing has been scheduled for June 29 before the council’s finance and revenue committee.
The committee’s chairman, Jack Evans, had originally scheduled a more informal roundtable, but mounting questions about the controversial legislation has now prompted him to take a more rigorous line.
Issues include the manner in which the measure was enacted last year; slipped into the city’s supplemental budget with no hearing or debate and with no apparent regard for the warnings of the city’s chief financial officer and attorney general, who had cautioned that there is uncertainty over whether federal law permits this kind of online gaming.
Since the law came into force, it has been revealed that Brown was in the well-paid employ of a law firm that had interests in gambling .
Brown has denied any conflict, claiming that no company represented by the firm, Edwards Angell Palmer and Dodge, which he has since left, had business before the council that would have been affected.
Current plans following the legalisation are to provide online gambling for free under the management of the DC Lottery in July, escalating the project to real money action in September. There are plans to set up internet ‘hot spots’ to assist the project.

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