Former Presidential Hopeful Opposes Online Poker

Despite the game being called Texas hold’em, and a Congressman from Texas (Rep. Joe Barton) with an online poker bill sitting in the U.S. House, Lone Star State Gov. Rick Perry has basically come out in support of a federal ban on Internet gaming, The Hill reported.

Perry, a Republican, once was trying to run for President, something that could actually happen again. He sent a letter to Congress on Monday urging action against web betting.

“Congress needs to step in now and call a ‘time-out’ by restoring the decades-long interpretation of the Wire Act,” Perry wrote in the letter. “When gambling occurs in the virtual world, the ability of states to determine whether the activity should be available to its citizens and under what conditions…is left subject to the vaguaries of the technological marketplace.”

The law Perry mentioned was re-interpreted in December 2011, paving the way for states to pursue online gaming within their respective borders. Some think that goes to far.

The man who is spending big money to reverse, or at least stall, the spread of real-money online gaming in the United States is billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who owns Las Vegas Sands Corp., one of the largest casino developers in the world. He has backed a coalition to oppose online gaming, asserting that he is “willing to spend whatever it takes.”

Adelson has said he thinks online games would hurt brick-and-mortar gambling, as well as be detrimental to American society, especially young people.

According to The Hill, Perry received campaign money from Adelson in 2007.

Just last week, a couple of lawmakers, Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), have introduced a bill that would ban online gaming.

Right now, Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware all have legalized web gaming of some kind. Other states, including California, Pennsylvania and New York, are considering it.

A federal ban on online gaming is probably very unlikely.

New Jersey lawmaker Ray Lesniak, who spearheaded the Garden State’s foray into Internet gaming, told Card Player late last year: “There is no way Congress is going to shut the doors on New Jersey after we are generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from Internet gaming. There is no way Congress would shut that down and there is no way the New Jersey Congressional Delegation would do that. I don’t believe there is any way Congressional representatives would do that to other states because then it could happen to them as well.”

He added: “Adelson is fighting a losing battle. You cannot shut down the Internet. He has given himself an impossible task no matter how much money he has to spend.”

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