No time to roll dice on Internet gambling law
- Nov 30, 2011 -
In keeping with rich tradition, Thanksgiving Day was a focal point of November for families across the nation. But one week before millions of Americans set aside the fourth Thursday of the month to focus on and give thanks to God for the abundant blessings in their lives, some lawmakers in Washington turned their attention elsewhere: to an industry based not on gratitude but greed.
In a pair of hearings that went largely unreported beyond special interest gambling groups, lawmakers in both the House and Senate took time to consider the so-called merits of giving Internet gambling—currently illegal in this nation—a permissible place in society.
On Nov. 17, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs spent the afternoon considering the “Future of Internet Gaming: What’s at Stake for Tribes?” To be sure, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and others well acquainted with the perils of Internet gambling are hopeful the industry has no future.
One day later, the House tried its hand. In a hearing entitled “Internet Gambling: Regulating in an Online World,” a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee considered the potential effects of allowing some online gambling to proceed with proper oversight. The government, of course, would oversee the regulations.
Such ill-conceived bills that would accomplish this aim—H.R. 2366 and H.R. 1174, for example—would likely be a gateway to what many elected officials are really eyeing: taxation. That would be a means for the debt-laden government—$15 trillion in the red and counting—to rake in even more of Americans’ dollars to fritter away.
At issue is an attempt to overturn, or at the least to undermine, a law that signaled the death knell of the illegal Internet gambling industry in the United States. In 2006, Congress spoke decisively on the issue of Internet gambling. With just two dissenters, 409 lawmakers in the House voted to approve, as part of a broader bill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which clarifies that online gambling is illegal. That measure, later passed with no objections in the Senate and signed into law by President George W. Bush, reinforces a 1961 law that banned gambling via wireless communication.
But the 2006 law goes a necessary step further: It puts needed enforcement teeth to the law. Under regulations based on the law, banks and other financial institutions are now required to have in place tools to block transactions between U.S.-based customer accounts and offshore gambling merchants, the biggest profiteers of the industry. And studies show it is working.
Since 2007, however, advocates of online gambling have set out to rid the law from the books. Last year, a House committee approved a bill to legalize Internet gambling, though it was not considered on the House floor. In the Senate, similar legislation to weaken the law was withheld from a vote in the eleventh hour largely due to opposition from the public.
The benefits of legalizing the addictive practice, however, are perceived, not real. Destroyed lives, broken families, and financial ruin are the face of Internet gambling. And it is an issue that should concern every American.
“Internet gambling is contrary to family values,” as Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) stated during the House subcommittee hearing. “With the explosive growth of smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband, the potential availability of Internet poker has grown exponentially just in the five years since it was outlawed in 2006. It will be like having a casino at your fingertips 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” said the 16-term congressman and longtime stalwart against legalization of any form of Internet gambling.
Many on both sides of the issue believe legislation to weaken or overturn the 2006 law against online gambling will not go anywhere anytime soon. A major hurdle is competing interests among the gambling lobby. But to let down the guard against such efforts would be foolhardy. Backed with overflowing coffers, the gambling-legalization lobby has no intention of stepping away from the table. Persistence, many have learned, is often the ticket to victory.
Easing the law on online gambling, no matter what kind of regulations might be attached, is a losing wager for America.
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