The Poker Players Alliance reported this weekend that attempts to push through an online poker ban on the tail of a House budget bill have failed. According to the PPA, the CEO of Las Vegas Sands and the industry’s most obsessive online gambling opponent, Sheldon Adelson, has been lobbying the House Appropriations Committee to enter language in its latest budget bill that is considered “hostile to online poker”.
Rich Muny, the PPA’s vice president of player relations, said that since Adelson’s lobbyists “know their proposed prohibition would be crushed in an open up-or-down vote,” they requested that the House insert the ban in the budget bill.
The language of the anti-online poker text echoed the Adelson-backed Restoration of America’s 1961 Wire Act (RAWA) which, so far, has been met with very little success, despite intense lobbying and millions of dollars spent by the Adelson camp.
The PPA reported that Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Henry Cuellar (D-Tex) who attempted to push to amendment in the House Appropriations Committee were forced to withdraw the plan after they failed to drum up enough support for the move.
The Poker Players Alliance said in its short victory dance statement: “We win. RAWA loses. Thank you for taking action to defeat this effort.”
The action noted by the PPA, refers to efforts of poker advocates and lobbyists who worked tirelessly to combat Dent’s efforts.
Another interesting point made by Muny is that why it would initially seem odd that Dent, a Pennsylvanian congressman, would seek to put a spoke in the wheel of his own state’s attempts to license and regulate online poker, it did not come as much of a surprise to learn that Sheldon Adelson’s Sands Bethlehem is in the good congressman’s district.
As for what the future holds, the PPA predicts that Dent and Cuellar will probably try and push through their bill again.
But the PPA warned that it is prepared for the battle. “Be assured that PPA will be ready for any and all backdoor attempts at a national online poker prohibition,” wrote Muny.
Earlier this month, another Adelson puppet, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina entered a single RAWA-like paragraph into the 141 page spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriates Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.
The paragraph reads: “Internet Gambling – Since 1961, the Wire Act has prohibited nearly all forms of gambling over interstate wires, including the internet. However, beginning in 2011, certain States began to permit internet gambling. The Committee notes that the Wire Act did not change in 2011. The Committee also notes that the Supreme Court of the United States has stated that, criminal laws are for courts, not for the government, to construe.”
