New Bill Introduced to Ban Online Poker in the U.S.

<h1>New Bill Introduced to Ban Online Poker in the U.S.</h1>
March 28th, 2014
The state of online poker in the United States always seems to be in controversy. During recent Senate and House meetings, a new bill that proposes to ban Internet gambling in the U.S. was introduced.

This bill was backed by long-time gambling opponent Sheldon Adelson and sponsored by representatives Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jason Chaffetz of Utah. The bill is going by the name the “Restoration of America’s Wire Act”.

In order for a bill to gain support, sponsors try to recruit co-sponsors to lend their backing. So far they have struggled to do so, which is good news for the poker world. While Senator Graham was able to add Dianne Feinstein from California, he was only able to get two other co-sponsors.

Chaffetz had seemingly more success, getting nine co-sponsors, but none from Democrat party are from states that currently offer gambling of any kind. In plain terms, there is currently not a lot of support for this bill.

Before celebrating a victory, it’s important to make sure the job is done. John Pappas is the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), who work to ensure that poker players are treated fairly. He is urging players to contact their lawmakers and ensure that they will not support it.

This bill is being driven by Adelson and his massive wealth, most of it coming from being the owner of the Las Vegas Sands, a casino. It’s no surprise that he is a large contributor to Graham’s election campaign this year and is opposed to online gambling that could take away a large part of his business. Last year Adelson contributed $15,600 to Graham’s campaign. While Graham claims he is supporting this bill out of his own moral integrity, you couldn’t be faulted for coming to other obvious conclusions.

While the fact that there are still a dozen co-sponsors may be concerning, these are mostly long-time opponents of gambling as well. As long as they are unable to garner a substantial amount of additional support, poker should be safe for the time being. Given that Adelson is one of the largest Republican contributor, he also isolates most potential Democratic support.

One of the key goals of this bill, according to Chaffetz, is to bring up the issue of online gambling to Congress. In the past the Department of Justice (DOJ) have ruled over related issues, as they had in December of 2011 when they stated that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting.

While this logic sounds fairly reasonable at first, Pappas sees it differently: “There’s been ample opportunity for Congress to discuss these issues. We’ve been begging Congress to discuss these issues for the past six years. There’s been numerous hearings on both the House and Senate side, and numerous bills introduced. As far as I know, Graham and Chaffetz have been absolutely silent when it comes to those discussions.”