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By late summer of 2006 the Republican Party had a pretty good idea that it would lose control of Congress in the November elections.
President Bush’s favorability rating was on the way toward lows never before seen in poll history and the GOP – which had pretty much marched lock, stock and barrel for the previous six years – was tethered to him.
As summer turned to fall the poll results became even more toxic and by October it was clear that many of those same Republicans would not be returned to office.
But before they left town, the GOP-controlled Senate passed, under the cover of darkness, without debate and attached to a completely unrelated bill pertaining to port security, a bill prohibiting Internet gambling.
A few months earlier the House had passed a similar bill, so on Oct. 13, 2006, it was signed by Bush and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act became law.
Game, set, match.
Or maybe not.
With Congress (and the White House) currently under control of the Democratic Party, efforts are underway to overturn the ban.
None of the parties involved thinks the road ahead will be easy. In fact, most view its passage as the equivalent of drawing an inside straight. But at least the defenders of the right to gamble online have halted the anti-gambling momentum.
Sometime later this month Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank will file a bill that would overturn the 2006 ban.
Unlike the 2006 legislation, Frank says his bill will be debated on its own merits and not attached to other legislation. (In 2006 Senate members would have committed political suicide had they voted against the port security bill.)
Frank was unavailable for comment on the bill, specifics of which are still being worked on. But an aide to Frank says that once the bill is ready for submission, he expects that it will receive its fair share of co-sponsors.
“House bills must at the very least be related to issue at hand,” says Frank spokesman Steve Adamske. “For example, we couldn’t attach the animal bill to one having to do with animal cruelty.”
The Senate, though, is under no such restriction, which was how the 2006 legislation slipped through the cracks.
As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank is particularly concerned about 2006 law’s requirement that banks and other financial institutions report account activity that may pertain to Internet wagering.
So if Joe from Peoria, Ill., uses his credit card to put money into his account at an offshore sportsbook in the Caribbean, Joe’s bank must ****** to the feds.
“The congressman (Frank) thinks that banks have enough on their plate today without worrying about informing on their customers,” says Adamske.
Frank and some other members of Congress feel the gambling industry has been under controls that are tight enough and that legalizing gambling (and possibly taxing it) would serve the dual purpose of getting the banking industry out of the stool pigeon business and enabling government to keep an eye on the industry to prevent abuses.
“This really shouldn’t be the government’s business,” says David Cherry, a spokesman for Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, an ardent supportor of the right to gamble. “The Internet is a global enterprise. It doesn’t make sense to restrict this activity.”
Richard Urey, another aide to Berkley, says that the congresswoman would not commit to supporting the legislation just yet, but is strongly opposed to the ban and is working hard to see it overturned.
“The congresswoman has met many times with all segments of the online wagering industry,” says Urey, “and communicated frequently with Chairman Frank and other members who are grappling with this. Her view is anti-prohibitionist, and she compares it with the Volstead Act (the failed Depression-era effort to stop drinking). Legalizing online gaming is in the best interests of all.”
While passage of the bill banning Internet gambling was largely seen as a payoff to the religious right and last-ditch move to mobilize conservatives for the 2006 election, the leader of the anti-gambling faction in the House was actually moderate Republican Jim Leach of Iowa.
Leach is credited with pressuring then-Senate Majority Leader Jim Frist to insert the bill into the port legislation at the last minute. Leach wasn’t able to enjoy his victory too long as he and a host of other Republicans were swept away in the Democratic landslide in November.
One GOPer who survived the Democratic tidal wave was Virginia Rep. Robert Goodlatte, who is against all forms of gambling – with the convenient exception of horse racing, which is popular in his home state.
Goodlatte’s office did not return a call asking for comment on this story. Berkley spokesman Cherry points out that the horse racing industry is struggling and some of those in it favor a ban on Internet gambling as one step toward restoring racing’s prominence.
The website casinogamblingweb.com reports that Goodlatte has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the horse racing industry.
UIGEA has hardly stopped Americans from gambling online, just as the Volstead Act failed to stop Americans from drinking. But it has made the deposit/withdrawal process more difficult.
PayPal was an option until it was purchased by eBay, which opposes gambling. Neteller became a billion-dollar enterprise processing payments for poker players and other gamblers until federal agents arrested the firm’s founders and seized their assets.
But nature abhors a vacuum and offshore sites have figured out ways around the UIGEA. At one successful Caribbean site, an official who asked not to be identified estimated that 90 percent of its business comes from American bettors.
Would a 180 on Internet gambling be another blow for the bricks-and-mortar casinos, most of whom are trying to find a light at the end of the recession tunnel?
“On the contrary,” says Jay Kornegay, executive director of the race and sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hilton. “The legalization of the online industry would be a huge boon for everyone. It would make wagering available to many more people, and I think it would have the reverse effect, making Vegas even more alluring. Vegas is a destination city. As the public got educated about wagering, it would make the city even more of a lure than it already is.”
Across the pond, books would no doubt love a share of the U.S. gambling market. Clive Hawkswood, CEO of the England-based Remote Gaming Association, which monitors gaming world-wide, has kept a close eye on what’s going on in Washington.
“Of course we’d welcome any legislation that would overturn UIGEA,” says Hawkswood. “It’s a poor law that has raised more questions than it has answered and has done little to dampen the enthusiasm for online gambling by US players. However, it would be fair to say that we are hopeful rather than optimistic about the chances of that happening in the short term.
“In an ideal world Congress would look at the issues . . . and introduce a non-discriminatory licensing [procedure] for companies that met the regulatory standards. Although Barney Frank is trying to move down that road, it will take time.”
Will the Frank legislation have a chance?
Right now, it’s still cloudy. Some Republicans generally opposed to government intrusion into people’s lives might support the new legislation; some moderate Democrats from states with full-blown casinos might find the legislation hard to back.
Either way, the climate has definitely changed in Washington.
“My sense,” says Urey, the aide of Congresswoman Berkley, “is that the issue is not as polarizing as it was a few years ago. We expect that many of the same people who backed passage in 2006 will oppose its repeal. But people don’t appear as strident about it.”
Still, proponents of overturning the ban expect blowback when the legislation is filed. Unlike the stimulus spending plan, which was generally supported by almost all Democrats and opposed by almost all Republicans, Internet gambling is difficult to pigeonhole.
The chances of drawing that inside straight?
“Like a lot of legislation, it might come down to phone calls,” says Adamske, the aide to Frank. “How many gamblers will pick up the phone and call their congressman?”
President Bush’s favorability rating was on the way toward lows never before seen in poll history and the GOP – which had pretty much marched lock, stock and barrel for the previous six years – was tethered to him.
As summer turned to fall the poll results became even more toxic and by October it was clear that many of those same Republicans would not be returned to office.
But before they left town, the GOP-controlled Senate passed, under the cover of darkness, without debate and attached to a completely unrelated bill pertaining to port security, a bill prohibiting Internet gambling.
A few months earlier the House had passed a similar bill, so on Oct. 13, 2006, it was signed by Bush and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act became law.
Game, set, match.
Or maybe not.
With Congress (and the White House) currently under control of the Democratic Party, efforts are underway to overturn the ban.
None of the parties involved thinks the road ahead will be easy. In fact, most view its passage as the equivalent of drawing an inside straight. But at least the defenders of the right to gamble online have halted the anti-gambling momentum.
Sometime later this month Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank will file a bill that would overturn the 2006 ban.
Unlike the 2006 legislation, Frank says his bill will be debated on its own merits and not attached to other legislation. (In 2006 Senate members would have committed political suicide had they voted against the port security bill.)
Frank was unavailable for comment on the bill, specifics of which are still being worked on. But an aide to Frank says that once the bill is ready for submission, he expects that it will receive its fair share of co-sponsors.
“House bills must at the very least be related to issue at hand,” says Frank spokesman Steve Adamske. “For example, we couldn’t attach the animal bill to one having to do with animal cruelty.”
The Senate, though, is under no such restriction, which was how the 2006 legislation slipped through the cracks.
As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank is particularly concerned about 2006 law’s requirement that banks and other financial institutions report account activity that may pertain to Internet wagering.
So if Joe from Peoria, Ill., uses his credit card to put money into his account at an offshore sportsbook in the Caribbean, Joe’s bank must ****** to the feds.
“The congressman (Frank) thinks that banks have enough on their plate today without worrying about informing on their customers,” says Adamske.
Frank and some other members of Congress feel the gambling industry has been under controls that are tight enough and that legalizing gambling (and possibly taxing it) would serve the dual purpose of getting the banking industry out of the stool pigeon business and enabling government to keep an eye on the industry to prevent abuses.
“This really shouldn’t be the government’s business,” says David Cherry, a spokesman for Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, an ardent supportor of the right to gamble. “The Internet is a global enterprise. It doesn’t make sense to restrict this activity.”
Richard Urey, another aide to Berkley, says that the congresswoman would not commit to supporting the legislation just yet, but is strongly opposed to the ban and is working hard to see it overturned.
“The congresswoman has met many times with all segments of the online wagering industry,” says Urey, “and communicated frequently with Chairman Frank and other members who are grappling with this. Her view is anti-prohibitionist, and she compares it with the Volstead Act (the failed Depression-era effort to stop drinking). Legalizing online gaming is in the best interests of all.”
While passage of the bill banning Internet gambling was largely seen as a payoff to the religious right and last-ditch move to mobilize conservatives for the 2006 election, the leader of the anti-gambling faction in the House was actually moderate Republican Jim Leach of Iowa.
Leach is credited with pressuring then-Senate Majority Leader Jim Frist to insert the bill into the port legislation at the last minute. Leach wasn’t able to enjoy his victory too long as he and a host of other Republicans were swept away in the Democratic landslide in November.
One GOPer who survived the Democratic tidal wave was Virginia Rep. Robert Goodlatte, who is against all forms of gambling – with the convenient exception of horse racing, which is popular in his home state.
Goodlatte’s office did not return a call asking for comment on this story. Berkley spokesman Cherry points out that the horse racing industry is struggling and some of those in it favor a ban on Internet gambling as one step toward restoring racing’s prominence.
The website casinogamblingweb.com reports that Goodlatte has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the horse racing industry.
UIGEA has hardly stopped Americans from gambling online, just as the Volstead Act failed to stop Americans from drinking. But it has made the deposit/withdrawal process more difficult.
PayPal was an option until it was purchased by eBay, which opposes gambling. Neteller became a billion-dollar enterprise processing payments for poker players and other gamblers until federal agents arrested the firm’s founders and seized their assets.
But nature abhors a vacuum and offshore sites have figured out ways around the UIGEA. At one successful Caribbean site, an official who asked not to be identified estimated that 90 percent of its business comes from American bettors.
Would a 180 on Internet gambling be another blow for the bricks-and-mortar casinos, most of whom are trying to find a light at the end of the recession tunnel?
“On the contrary,” says Jay Kornegay, executive director of the race and sportsbook at the Las Vegas Hilton. “The legalization of the online industry would be a huge boon for everyone. It would make wagering available to many more people, and I think it would have the reverse effect, making Vegas even more alluring. Vegas is a destination city. As the public got educated about wagering, it would make the city even more of a lure than it already is.”
Across the pond, books would no doubt love a share of the U.S. gambling market. Clive Hawkswood, CEO of the England-based Remote Gaming Association, which monitors gaming world-wide, has kept a close eye on what’s going on in Washington.
“Of course we’d welcome any legislation that would overturn UIGEA,” says Hawkswood. “It’s a poor law that has raised more questions than it has answered and has done little to dampen the enthusiasm for online gambling by US players. However, it would be fair to say that we are hopeful rather than optimistic about the chances of that happening in the short term.
“In an ideal world Congress would look at the issues . . . and introduce a non-discriminatory licensing [procedure] for companies that met the regulatory standards. Although Barney Frank is trying to move down that road, it will take time.”
Will the Frank legislation have a chance?
Right now, it’s still cloudy. Some Republicans generally opposed to government intrusion into people’s lives might support the new legislation; some moderate Democrats from states with full-blown casinos might find the legislation hard to back.
Either way, the climate has definitely changed in Washington.
“My sense,” says Urey, the aide of Congresswoman Berkley, “is that the issue is not as polarizing as it was a few years ago. We expect that many of the same people who backed passage in 2006 will oppose its repeal. But people don’t appear as strident about it.”
Still, proponents of overturning the ban expect blowback when the legislation is filed. Unlike the stimulus spending plan, which was generally supported by almost all Democrats and opposed by almost all Republicans, Internet gambling is difficult to pigeonhole.
The chances of drawing that inside straight?
“Like a lot of legislation, it might come down to phone calls,” says Adamske, the aide to Frank. “How many gamblers will pick up the phone and call their congressman?”