Sheldon Adelson To Launch Anti-Online Poker GroupBillionaire To Fund Extravagant Campaign On Issue |
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Sheldon Adelson is ready to spend lavishly on fighting online gambling in the U.S.
According to The Washington Post, the billionaire owner of Las Vegas Sands Corp. will be launching a public campaign to fight legalization of Internet betting.
It’s unclear how much he will spend, but his bank account is nearly limitless and he spent around $100 million last year trying to get a Republican in the White House.
He reportedly will be trying to portray the fledgling industry as “a danger to children, the poor and others who could be exploited by easy access to Internet betting.”
Right now, three states — Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware — have legal web gambling. Nevada and Delaware have both launched already, while New Jersey will do so this week.
According to The Post, in January Adelson will unveil the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, which will employ a wide range of people, including child advocates. The group will include former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, former U.S. senator Blanche Lincoln and former New York governor George Pataki. The three will give speeches and write op-eds.
Adelson will be trying to influence individual states who might be considering the issue in 2014, but he also wants a new federal bill specifically banning the activity.
“In my 15 years of working with [Adelson], I don’t think I have ever seen him this passionate about any issue,” Andy Abboud, Adelson’s top political adviser, told The Post.
This fall, Adelson commissioned a poll to show that residents in some states were against the idea of gambling coming to the Internet. The results have been disputed.
His moral position against web poker stems from his apparent fear that minors could gamble.
This past summer, he wrote an op-ed in Forbes where he said online gambling could bring a “plague” “to our society.” He finished the op-ed by calling the business a “toxin."
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