Lindsey Graham Trying To Sneak Online Poker Ban Into Spending Bill

A $56.3 billion spending bill intended to support national security, law enforcement and American scientific innovation is apparently a last-ditch effort by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to enact a nationwide ban on online casino games, including poker.

The 141-page spending bill contains a single paragraph of RAWA-like language. The bill comes from the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

RAWA stands for “Restoration of America’s Wire Act,” which refers to the 1961 law that the Department of Justice re-interpreted in 2011 to allow states to take the lottery to the Internet, as well as legalize online casino games. “Restoring” it would presumably reverse that DoJ opinion.

The language comes about a third of the way through the proposal.

Internet Gambling.—Since 1961, the Wire Act has prohibited nearly all forms of gambling over interstate wires, including the Internet. However, beginning in 2011, certain States began to permit Internet gambling. The Committee notes that the Wire Act did not change in 2011. The Committee also notes that the Supreme Court of the United States has stated that “criminal laws are for courts, not for the government, to construe.”

GamblingCompliance reported that the language was included at the request of Graham.

The measure was approved by the subcommittee on April 19, the day after a report from The Hill said that Amaya Gaming Group, parent company of PokerStars, hired a lobbyist on Capitol Hill to work on the Internet gaming issue. That apparently came around the same time that the Sheldon Adelson-banked Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling hired another lobbying group to push its opposite agenda. The paragraph in the spending bill comes a handful of months after a December RAWA hearing led by Rep. John Chaffetz (R-Utah) went poorly for supporters of enacting the prohibition.

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