Frank to offer legislation allowing online gambling

[BettorsChat]

By Jonathan D. Salant and Lorraine Woellert
Bloomberg News / May 6, 2009

WASHINGTON - Legislation to allow Internet gambling is scheduled to be introduced today by US Representative Barney Frank.

Similar legislation failed in the last Congress. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has support for the bill from such companies as Youbet.com Inc., and Harrah's Entertainment Inc., in addition to the Poker Players Alliance, formed to overturn a 2006 ban on Internet poker.

Supporters "have been mobilizing," Frank said last week. "This is a grass-roots thing."

The legislation would allow licensed gambling operators to accept online wagers from people in the United States. The bill would revise the 2006 law, which made it a crime for banks to process financial transactions used to place illegal bets online.

Harrah's vice president Jan Jones said regulating and taxing online gambling might swell government coffers by $2 billion to $6 billion annually. "At a time where there is no money, that can be going to healthcare or S-CHIP," the children's insurance program, Jones said.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

Frank to offer legislation allowing online gambling - The Boston Globe

[likes2stare]

The bill, if made law, would prohibit sports wagering. Here's some links.
Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative
Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative

[insidethe8thpol]

He also wants a bill passed so that he can wrap the genitals of male interns in croissants while holding congressional hearings

[BearDown]

He also wants a bill passed so that he can wrap the genitals of male interns in croissants while holding congressional hearings

I think (R) Mark Foley already got caught doing that.

Anyway...... Back to the issue.

Delaware Legalizes Sports Betting
Posted by Aaron Wilson on May 14, 2009, 3:36 p.m.
Round up the NFL legal team. It’s official.

The state of Delaware made sports betting legal today as Gov. Jack Martell signed a legislative bill into law, which sets the stage for a formal legal challenge from the NFL, according to the Associated Press.

It will likely trigger a race against the clock to seek a potential injunction since Delaware officials stated that they intend to have sports betting operational in the next three months in advance of the NFL and college football schedule.

The NFL has already filed a legal brief with Delaware’s state Supreme Court, making the argument that its games can’t be considered “chance” due to the role that skill plays in determining the outcome of games, according to the Wilmington News Journal.

A hearing is set for May 21 before the state Supreme Court.

I also saw on FOX News where other states are trying push through legislation to have sports betting aloud in their casino's, but they said that they are expecting a fight from the NFL and NBA and the NCAA not to allow it.

[flarendep1]

He also wants a bill passed so that he can wrap the genitals of male interns in croissants while holding congressional hearings

That is what he considers a stimulus package.

[BettorsChat]

He also wants a bill passed so that he can wrap the genitals of male interns in croissants while holding congressional hearings

I think (R) Mark Foley already got caught doing that.

Anyway...... Back to the issue.

Delaware Legalizes Sports Betting
Posted by Aaron Wilson on May 14, 2009, 3:36 p.m.
Round up the NFL legal team. It’s official.

The state of Delaware made sports betting legal today as Gov. Jack Martell signed a legislative bill into law, which sets the stage for a formal legal challenge from the NFL, according to the Associated Press.

It will likely trigger a race against the clock to seek a potential injunction since Delaware officials stated that they intend to have sports betting operational in the next three months in advance of the NFL and college football schedule.

The NFL has already filed a legal brief with Delaware’s state Supreme Court, making the argument that its games can’t be considered “chance” due to the role that skill plays in determining the outcome of games, according to the Wilmington News Journal.

A hearing is set for May 21 before the state Supreme Court.

I also saw on FOX News where other states are trying push through legislation to have sports betting aloud in their casino's, but they said that they are expecting a fight from the NFL and NBA and the NCAA not to allow it.

The NFL, NBA and NCAA better wake up, because if people couldn't wager on those events tickets sales would drop, TV ad revenue would drop etc.

And while there at it they might want to mention to the announcers not to mention the spread on games. And doesn't the NFL or ESPN have a hired person that picks games against the spread?

[BearDown]

The NFL, NBA and NCAA better wake up, because if people couldn't wager on those events tickets sales would drop, TV ad revenue would drop etc.

And while there at it they might want to mention to the announcers not to mention the spread on games. And doesn't the NFL or ESPN have a hired person that picks games against the spread?

Good points BC. I know ESPN use to have a Vegas guy on every week talking about the spread. I don't know if they still have him on because I haven't watched ESPN in about two years now. I know I'd like too see our local casino (The Hard Rock) allow sports betting. They want to expand, but they also want all Vegas style table gaming, and you know how that's going to go. Fucking politics everytime!

[BearDown]

Delaware thinks that its proposed sports betting scheme will be more likely to withstand subsequent court challenges if Delaware gets its Supreme Court to sign off on the process before the sports betting scheme is launched.

The league explains that it is opposing the Delaware sports betting scheme because “[s]ports lotteries threaten the integrity of NFL games and are grossly inconsistent with the values of the NFL.”

Here are the league’s arguments, in a nutshell.

First, the NFL contends that the question of whether sports gambling violates the Delaware Constitution is something that cannot be resolved easily or quickly. Article II, Section 17 of the Delaware Constitution permits only a lottery — and a lottery is premised on chance, not skill. The league points out that, in past cases arising in other states involving the “chance” versus “skill” debate, decisions have been made based on the development of a significant “factual record” (i.e., hours of droning witnesses and acres of dead trees and other stuff on which informed decisions can be made, if the folks digesting the information can stay awake long enough to make a decision).

Second, the NFL contends that the Delaware Supreme Court can’t offer a sufficiently binding and reliable opinion on whether the proposed sports betting scheme will violate federal law.

In 1992, the U.S. government essentially slammed the door on the expansion of sports gambling, banning all such betting and exempting only those states that already had allowed sports wagering and those states that had done so at some point between 1976 and 1990.

Delaware believes that a sports lottery game used for a brief time in 1976 fits within the exception to the federal law (and which failed miserably because gamblers were winning too consistently). But, as the NFL points out, there simply is no way for the Delaware Supreme Court to know what will happen if/when the feds decide to explore the proposed Delaware sports gambling initiative.

Third, the NFL argues that the Delaware Supreme Court can determine prospectively that sports betting necessarily involves skill, and thus violates the Delaware Constitution.

Frankly, we can’t imagine anyone taking the position that sports betting doesn’t involve skill. Some think the betting line is aimed at making the picking of a winner and a loser the equivalent of guessing whether a coin will come up heads or tails. In reality, the betting line is aimed at ensuring equal “action” on each team, with the bets canceling each other out and the house’s profit coming from the vigorish — the eleventh dollar that is bet in order to win ten of them.

So if a bettor possesses the ability to spot the situations in which the line is affected by the inaccurate perceptions of the masses, a bettor can push the odds in his or her favor by spotting those situations in which the line doesn’t reflect the realistic difference between the teams.

Finally, the NFL argues that the potential validation of the sports betting scheme by the Delaware Supreme Court disrupts the balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branch by giving the highest court in the state a role in the development of legislation that, typically, a court interprets and applies after the other two branches have made it law.

Though we still aren’t sure whether the NFL should care about any of this, given that people are going to gamble regardless of whether it’s legal, we think that the NFL is right on this one. Sports betting is based on skill, and thus the proposed sports betting scheme would violate the Delaware Constitution