Roadblocks for Barton’s Internet Gambling Bill
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is having trouble getting lawmakers to pay attention to his Internet gambling bill, HR-2366, he said after a House Commerce Manufacturing Subcommittee hearing on Internet gambling Friday. “This is an issue that is not on everybody’s list. It’s not a high visibility issue,” Barton told us. “There is a focus on getting bigger things done like reducing the federal deficit.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Barton’s bill aims to legalize online poker playing by requiring Web gambling sites to obtain licenses and maintain a database of all their online poker players. Last month House Commerce Committee members raised significant concerns about the logistical and technical problems associated with legalizing Internet gambling (WID Oct 26 p1).
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., loudly objected to legalizing Internet gambling, calling it “the crack cocaine of gambling,” in heated testimony before the committee Friday. “It would be like having a casino at your fingertips 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” said Wolf, a prominent social conservative in Congress. “This legislation will only fuel the epidemic of gambling addiction.”
Subcommittee Chairman Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., urged lawmakers to consider how online gambling legislation could affect native American tribes whose brick and mortar gambling operations are sanctioned under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). “It’s very important to remember how tribal gaming has improved the lives of thousands of Native Americans and I want to make certain that they are not adversely impacted by online gambling -- legal or otherwise.”
Tribal nations were united in their opposition to gambling legislation that fails to honor the sovereign rights of native tribes, said Ernie Stevens, chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA). “We are working together on this and our tribes stand united on this issue,” he told us after the hearing. On Thursday, Stevens told lawmakers at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing that NIGA opposed Barton’s bill because it would violate the core principles of tribal leaders concerning gambling rights (WID Nov 17 p1). Specifically, the bill fails to treat tribes as government operators, would tax tribal government revenue, and would violate existing IGRA rights, Stevens said. Of the 184 tribal nations in NIGA, Stevens said, “there is absolutely no division on these principles.”
Barton also failed to convince the members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to consider his legislation as a means to close the deficit gap, he told us after the hearing. “I've pitched it to Chairman [Fred] Upton [R-Mich.] but I haven’t heard much back on that,” Barton said.
But Barton’s bill was backed by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who said it would help safeguard Americans from fraud and cheating. Frank formerly led the charge for Internet gambling as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee before Republicans took the House in 2010. “American consumers who wish to gamble online are currently without rigorous and consistent safeguards against fraud, identity theft, underage and problem gambling, and money laundering,” he said in written testimony before the subcommittee. Federal authorities recently blocked U.S. players from accessing three of the top poker websites, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars, and in April prosecutors in Manhattan charged 11 people with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling (WID April 18 p6). “Enacting legislation to license, regulate, and tax online gambling as well as implement problem gambling programs, would bring this industry out of the shadows, benefit consumers, create American jobs, capture revenue and allow adults to enjoy freedom from unnecessary government interference,” Frank said.
Ranking Member G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., also supported legalizing Internet gambling because of the “tremendous boost to hemorrhaged budgets” it could provide, he said. But Butterfield also warned that legalizing Internet gambling could expose at-risk populations to gambling addiction, and he urged lawmakers to include consumer safeguards like time and deposit limits. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and any legislation must include sufficient funds to carry out education, treatment, and research services related to problem gambling,” he said.
Wolf dismissed the “disingenuous” arguments by Internet gambling proponents that Barton’s bill would bring a windfall to beleaguered state and federal budgets. “I assure you that what tax revenue it generates will overwhelmingly come out of the pockets of the most vulnerable populations,” Wolf said. “There is no question that the social and economic effects of gambling fall disproportionately on three groups; the poor, the elderly and the young. Notably, these are the same groups of Americans that have been hit hardest by the recent recession.”