Powerful lobby shapes law to serve lotteries, track owners, tribes
The Internet Gambling Prohibition bill was supposed to do just what its name implied: curb the explosion of online gambling. But as the bill heads into the final stretch in Congress, it has become a magnet for favors to gambling interests.
First, there is the $14 billion a year parimutuel horse racing industry, which would get a share of the proceeds from bets placed on a home computer. Wielding influence through its nationwide network of tracks, breeders and horse 온라인바둑이 farms, the industry has won concessions that the Justice Department says would “expand gambling opportunities.”
That exception has set off a frenzy among other groups — from Indian tribes to states with lotteries — clamoring for the same privileges. Before the Senate passed the measure in November, the American Greyhound Track Operators won a similar exception for dog tracks. Then Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., went to bat in the House for the state’s jai alai industry — and jai alai was added to the list.
As a result, several Christian right organizations have pulled their support. And the anti-gambling bill — once a seemingly straightforward effort to clamp down on a fast-growing phenomenon — has become bogged down in the war of clashing interests, with groups from professional sports leagues to Internet service providers to credit card companies angling to protect their interests.
The established casino industry has been a prime mover behind the bill because it would curb the online upstarts the industry fears could cut into its profits.
But after unanimously passing the Senate last year and winning approval in the House Judiciary Committee in April, the legislation is “in trouble,” one aide to the House Republican leadership said. No date has been set for floor action.
The biggest current dispute involves state lotteries, which don’t sell tickets online but want to be able to compete in cyberspace. In a bid to retain support from Christian groups, the House Judiciary Committee put severe restrictions on state lotteries before it approved the bill.
Lobbyists for the online companies that would handle this business have mobilized the National Governors Association and individual governors to ask House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and other top House Republicans for help. They have urged Congress to let states decide for themselves whether to permit the use of the Internet for local lottery operations.
On the other side, convenience store chains that sell lottery tickets fear the Internet could undercut the business and are opposing an exemption.
Many other interest groups have weighed in as well. Professional and college athletic leagues believe Internet gambling poses ethical and economic perils for sports, and are pressing for restrictions. America Online Inc. and other Internet service providers are seeking to limit their liability for allowing access to online casinos. Credit card companies want to ensure that they can collect debts incurred in online wagering.
All this is a far cry from the situation a year ago, when Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on technology, set out to meet the demands of the anti-gambling movement.
More than 250 online casinos, 64 lotteries, 20 bingo games and 139 sports books already provide gambling over the Internet, according to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Most of the Web sites were beyond the reach of U.S. regulators or tax collectors, and many seemingly violated long- standing federal law that already prohibits the use of wires to facilitate or transmit betting across state lines.
The Senate bill was endorsed by numerous religious and conservative groups opposed to gambling in all forms. But the bill also had the backing of Washington’s most pro- gambling group, the American Gaming Association, representing casinos, riverboat gambling operators and casino equipment manufacturers.
“If a little mud gets spotted at one end of this industry, everyone gets covered with it,” said association President Frank Fahrenkopf.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., whose home state’s casinos and riverboats have made Mississippi the country’s third-highest recipient of gambling revenue, signed on as an early co- sponsor, and the bill sailed through the Senate.
In the House, however, warfare among various gambling interests intensified, and the exceptions for online parimutuel betting were preserved only after a major grassroots effort by the American Horse Council, representing tracks, breeders, trainers, jockeys and horse farms.
Illustrative of the industry’s grassroots ties is Arlington Racetrack northwest of Chicago. The track is a subsidiary of Duchossois Industries. Members of the Duchossois family have contributed $41,000 to the Illinois Republican Party since 1996, and some employees live in Hastert’s district. The track itself is in the district of Judiciary Committee Chairman Republican Henry J. Hyde.
Horse racing officials hotly disagree with the Justice Department that the parimutuel provisions expand gambling. Under current law, they say, nine states allow “account wagering” in which registered players can telephone bets to a track or an off-track facility in their state.
“We believe the bills only maintain the status quo, grandfather us in and protect our opportunity to do this type of wagering under state requirements,” said American Horse Council President Jay Hickey. Tracks could receive an average of 3 cents on every dollar wagered interactively — similar to the share in off-track betting.
Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-Va., chief House architect of the bill, called the provision “a narrow exemption that reflects what’s going on on the Internet.”
But Justice Department officials contend that expressly authorizing the use of the Internet for horse racing would expand gambling opportunities by allowing bettors from out of state to place wagers. Some of that has already happened. One horse racing site, Youbet.com, settled a lawsuit brought by the Los Angeles County district attorney by agreeing not to accept wagers from California residents.
Anti-gambling groups are now divided on the bill. “We can show it will reduce the amount of gambling. Horse racing and jai alai are not growing, so we’re not as concerned about them as these other forms,” said Michael Bowman of the Family Research Council.
But in a May 11 letter to Hyde, Paul M. Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, voiced “strong opposition.” The Christian Coalition, which originally supported the bill, said in a March letter to Hyde that it could no longer do so because of the dog racing and jai alai provisions.
The Traditional Values Coalition has also changed its mind. “When it gave an exemption to parimutuel betting, we said this is too much,” said the group’s chairman, the Rev. Lou Sheldon. “It opens a giant Pandora’s box.”
https://bestbadugi.travel.blog/2021/10/08/aussies-online-gaming-debate/
bestbadugi 