\nOne of Sen. Harry Reid\u2019s priorities in his remaining months in office is to outlaw online gaming.<\/p>\n
\tAsked in a radio interview last week about a proposed ban in Congress, Reid said \u201conline gaming is not good for our country\u201d but he thought online poker would be good for Nevada. If the House of Representatives were to pass the ban, Reid said, the Senate would "give it a good hard try.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn the past, Reid has supported exempting online poker, which is legal in Nevada, from a broader online gaming ban. But in the interview on KNPR’s "State of Nevada" talk show, Reid wasn\u2019t clear about whether he would try to carve out a poker exemption in the current bill, which is backed by Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWell, we will see what the legislation does \u2014 we will see what the House does,\u201d Reid said when asked if he supported Adelson\u2019s push for a complete ban. \u201cBut I think, for the state of Nevada, online gaming is not the direction we should go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Senate minority leader\u2019s comments give momentum to a federal ban moving through the House, although much of the casino industry is fighting back. Meanwhile, some states are continuing to look at expanding online gaming.<\/p>\n
\tMomentum against online gaming in Congress<\/p>\n
\tThe ban, proposed in legislation called the Restoration of America\u2019s Wire Act, would essentially reverse a 2011 Department of Justice opinion that opened the floodgates to legal online gaming. The legislation also was introduced in the last Congress.<\/p>\n
\tThis time around, with Republicans now in control of both chambers, the ban has made more progress. The version introduced in the House by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, picked up more co-sponsors than it did last year. And last month, some members of the House conducted a hearing on the legislation.<\/p>\n
\tWith the support of Adelson, a major Republican donor, the bill has a powerful force behind it. Support from Reid, the Senate minority leader, could take it even further.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI think (Reid) hears Mr. Adelson\u2019s position, and I think the fact that they share that position speaks volumes about where he is on the issue,\u201d said Adelson ally Andy Abboud.<\/p>\n
\tBut opponents of an online gaming ban have their own strong supporters, including casino giant Caesars Entertainment and the Poker Players Alliance. John Pappas, the executive director of the alliance, said he hoped Reid was still favorable toward online poker.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSen. Reid has been a vocal supporter of Internet poker and the regulation of Internet poker, and I certainly hope that position has not changed,\u201d Pappas said. \u201cI think there\u2019s clearly one casino interest in the state that opposes this, but Mr. Reid does have a lot of other casino interests and home-state employers that are very interested in seeing Internet poker be prosperous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe three states with existing online gaming industries \u2014 Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware \u2014 aren\u2019t the only ones that stand to be affected by the legislation. Pappas said states that allow some form of lottery activity online would also be impacted, widening the scope of business interests that stand to be hurt by a ban.<\/p>\n
\tGiven the political and logistical complications, Morgan Stanley said in a report this week that while the ban \u201ccould be gaining momentum,\u201d it probably wouldn\u2019t pass Congress, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe believe a federal ban of online gaming is unlikely given legislators\u2019 split views,\u201d the firm said. \u201cWhile the bill may advance out of committee, we believe it faces long odds of passing, especially without carve-outs for online lotteries and existing online gaming states.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMomentum for online gaming in the states<\/p>\n
\tIn states where it\u2019s legal, online gaming has not been much of an economic boon.<\/p>\n
\tAt its peak, online poker brought in a little more than $1 million in Nevada last June, but the state\u2019s overall gaming revenue that month was nearly $907 million. State gaming officials stopped reporting revenue for the game after Ultimate Poker, then one of Nevada\u2019s three legal sites, shut down.<\/p>\n
\tIn New Jersey \u2014 which isn\u2019t limited to poker like Nevada \u2014 the situation is better, but it\u2019s still not a huge economic driver. There, online gaming brought in $10.4 million in February, compared to total monthly gaming revenue of $178.4 million.<\/p>\n
\tMorgan Stanley also slashed nearly in half its estimate of how large the nation\u2019s online gaming market could become. It said the online gaming market could reach $2.7 billion by 2020, instead of the $5 billion it predicted earlier.<\/p>\n
\tIn addition to moral arguments against online gaming, Abboud believes the unimpressive revenue figures support a ban that includes poker.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt is very clear from the performance in Nevada as well as New Jersey … that online poker is not an economically viable market, and has not provided any true economic benefit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tNonetheless, online gaming has grown some \u2014 and may grow more \u2014 at the state level. Last week, a network allowing gamblers in Nevada and Delaware to play online poker with each other went live. Gov. Brian Sandoval had nothing but praise for the development, proclaiming in a statement that Nevada and Delaware were \u201cat the vanguard of Internet gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe gaming industry is evolving, and Nevada is evolving with it,\u201d Sandoval said.<\/p>\n
\tOther states, notably California and Pennsylvania, have toyed with the idea of legalizing online gaming, which would help expand the nationwide market. It could also help the existing state markets if they were to pool players like Nevada and Delaware.<\/p>\n
\tMorgan Stanley\u2019s report expects that online gaming won\u2019t expand to any more states this year, but anticipates that it will eventually become legal in California, Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois.<\/p>\n
\tWhile Congress \u2014 boosted by Reid \u2014 considers going in the opposite direction, Pappas said he didn\u2019t think that would hold back state-level progress.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI think states actually would say, if the federal government is going to act, then maybe it\u2019s appropriate for us to get out in front of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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