Anti-Online Poker Politician Willing To Give Carve-Out For Online Lottery Ticket SalesCongressman Lindsay Graham Open To Reworking RAWA |
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Congressman Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who said he has never used email in his life, is open to the idea of a RAWA carve-out for state lotteries wishing to sell tickets and offer other lottery-like games online, according to GamblingCompliance.
Right now there is a bill dubbed the “Restoration of America’s Wire Act” being pushed by Congressman John Chaffetz (R-UT). Graham might introduce his own—basically identical—version later this year to increase the chances of the online gaming ban becoming the law of the land. Graham introduced an anti-online poker bill last year, but it didn’t go anywhere.
As written, RAWA would prohibit state lotteries from hosting games or selling tickets online. More than a dozen states have online lottery services of some kind. Another 12 are considering the Internet to boost lottery revenue, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. So, it wasn’t surprising when the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) came out last year in opposition to a nationwide online gaming ban.
State lotteries were benefited from the DOJ’s re-interpretation of the Wire Act in 2011. It was actually a couple of state lotteries that spearheaded the effort to get the law re-examined, which gave regulated online poker a road to become regulated at the state level. Just three states—Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware—have regulated online poker.
Despite anti-online poker discussions on Capitol Hill, the states of California, Pennsylvania, New York, Mississippi and Washington have been considering pro-online poker bills.
The U.S. lotto industry is worth tens of billions annually, dwarfing online casino gaming. The lotto industry is actually about the same size of the entire U.S. casino industry, if you factor in tribal gaming as well. Gambling with no skill involved whatsoever is immensely popular in the U.S.
Unlike the casino industry, the lotto appears united in using the Internet to boost revenue. State lotteries might be regulated online poker’s greatest ally in defeating RAWA. Thus, if Graham gives them a carve-out, it could weaken the poker community’s defensive position.
RAWA already has carve-outs for fantasy sports and horse races, as well as closed-circuit networks like the mobile sports betting already happening in Las Vegas.
Despite all of this, RAWA still is a long ways away from becoming law.
“Historical voting data shows that RAWA—or any other federal Internet gambling bill introduced in this congressional session, whether it be prohibitory or not—is facing very long odds indeed," GamblingCompliance’s Chris Krafcik told Card Player. "According to our research and to figures from GovTrack.us, the enactment rate for Internet gambling bills introduced between 1995 and 2014 was approximately 2 percent, which is well below the approximate 3.7 percent enactment rate for all bills introduced during that 20-year period.”
(H/t to OnlinePokerReport for the GamblingCompliance report.)
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