\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2013 Lawmakers from both parties introduced legislation in the House and Senate on Wednesday aimed at banning online gambling, setting the stage for an uncertain battle in Congress.<\/p>\n
\tThe measures are aimed at reversing a 2011 decision by Attorney General Eric Holder that a 1961 law used in recent years to curb Internet gaming only barred sports betting. The bills introduced Wednesday would broaden the prohibition to where it stood before Holder\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n
\tThree states have legalized online gaming since the Justice Department\u2019s 2011 ruling: Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware. Others have been considering doing so in an effort to find lucrative new sources of revenue.<\/p>\n
\tSen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chief Senate sponsor, is running for re-election this year and has been seeking to shore up conservative support for the June GOP primary. The House version is sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. Both sponsor\u2019s states have histories of curbing gambling.<\/p>\n
\tGraham said that because of the Justice Department decision, \u201cVirtually any cellphone or computer can again become a video poker machine. It\u2019s simply not right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tChaffetz said restoring the earlier interpretation of the 1961 law would be \u201cputting the genie back in the bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tEach bill has co-sponsors from both parties, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.<\/p>\n
\tSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who controls his chamber\u2019s agenda, has supported legalizing online poker.<\/p>\n
\tNevada\u2019s other senator, Republican Dean Heller, favors Internet poker in Nevada and wants to let states decide whether to permit poker online. He also thinks a major expansion of online gambling would be \u201cbad for Nevada and for the country,\u201d Heller spokeswoman Chandler Smith said.<\/p>\n
\tSheldon Adelson, a major financial backer of GOP candidates and a casino owner, has said he will spend money to try halting online gambling.<\/p>\n
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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2013 Lawmakers from both parties introduced legislation in the House and Senate on Wednesday aimed at banning online gambling, setting the stage for an uncertain battle in Congress. The measures are aimed at reversing a 2011 decision by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}