Despite Massive Support for Online Gambling, Nevada Leaders Cold
Despite the temporary setback by the tie vote in committee on Barney Frank's bill preventing enforcement of the UIGEA, the regulation of online gambling continues to be an issue with which Congress must deal. Jim McDermott's new bill follows another Frank bill; Frank's calls for regulation and taxation of the online casinos, and McDermott's indicates ways the billions raised may be spent to return great benefits to the United States.
But some legislators are not thrilled with the proposals. Despite evidence including this week's USA Today poll showing voters prefering regulation to a gambling ban in landslide numbers, Congressional leaders from Nevada are not enthused.
Representative Jon Porter, a Nevada Republican, rejected McDermott's bill as "a frivolous attack on the gaming community to pay for services that local governments, states and the federal government should already be providing." This seems to indicate Porter is unaware that gaming taxation pays for many such services around the country right now, and has solved financial conundrums for governments throughout the United States.
The American Gaming Association, which is strangely neutral on the subject of online gambling, stated that one of their main beliefs was that gambling taxation and regulation should remain a province of individual states. The AGA is the representative of the Nevada casinos, and does not want to lose the very favorable tax situation its members currently enjoy; nor is the competition from online casinos particularly welcome.
Representative Shelley Berkley, a Democratic Nevadan, has fought against the UIGEA and is considered a supporter of regulation for the online gaming industry. Still she suggests that other legislation is premature, and has proposed a year-long study on online gambling be done by the National Academy of Science before any other moves are debated. The AGA supports this idea.
Sherman Bradley, Online Casino Advisory's senior gaming analyst, says much of this reaction from Nevada has nothing to do with principles, and everything to do with positioning of the big money players in that state. "Studies have already been done many times, around the world, and from many perspectives; they all end up concluding regulation not only allows personal freedoms, but also protects against all the dangers which otherwise cannot be stopped."
Bradley went on to say, 'If Nevada casinos are worried about losing even more business than their current corporate policies have cost them, through their disregarding of value and service, then they should begin exploring using their brand advantages in the Internet casino world, as suggested by last week's joint UNLV- University of Western Ontario study."
"Any further studies will yield the same results as those of France, South Africa, and Belgium, all of whom are beginning the regulation of online gambling in the next few months. Why put off for another year what must be done, and what voters want?"
