Federal US bill: Dead in the water?
The latest attempt to regulate online gambling at the federal level seems like it's over before it's even begun
When Republican Peter King introduced a new bill to regulate online gambling to the US House of Representatives last week there was little fanfare and even less celebration from the egaming sector. The bill seemed a huge win for the industry, with all forms of online gambling legalised, with the exception of sports betting, international player pools and a balanced regulatory framework with no obvious carve outs and no bad actor clause. But it’s precisely these reasons that mean the bill is almost certainly doomed to fail.
If the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2013 were to come into law it would create a huge open online gambling market in the US, with states and tribes automatically opted-in unless they chose otherwise. It looks to take advantage of the US Department of Justice’s ruling on the Wire Act to create a broad egaming sector in a market where previously regulators have sought to do precisely the opposite.
The bill seems dead in the water, with its only supporters likely to be the existing online gambling industry. One of online gambling’s biggest proponents, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, told the Las Vegas Sun newspaper he didn’t hold out much hope for the bill. More worryingly he added there was little hope for online gaming legislation period. “I felt for several months now that I don’t see any movement on this,” Reid told the Sun. “I don’t see anything happening.”
Reid is known to be working on ‘poker only’ legislation, which will hopefully be introduced later this year if he can garner enough cross-party support. The balance of a poker-only bill gives players on both sides something to shout about with the effective banning of all other forms of gambling acting as a counterpoint to the regulation of the national pastime. The King bill just seems like a win-only for online gambling supporters.
King said in a statement the bill would ensure “strong protections for consumers” and protect against problem and underage gambling as well as making life easier for businesses. But this is the sort of argument that seems to apply more to a country where online gambling is more freely available. Congressmen need to be convinced of a reason to regulate rather than prohibit, not a reason to make the existing environment more consumer-friendly.
And the changing regulatory picture in the US is not favourable for any federal egaming bill. With more states slowly lining up to join Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware in licensing online gambling the need for a federal bill diminishes with each passing month. If Nevada and New Jersey can prove effective at licensing and regulating online gambling within state borders, the requirement for over-arching national laws in a nation that has always left gambling to the states become superfluous.
John Pappas, executive director of the PPA, seemed to accidentally say what everyone was thinking that the bill marked the end of federal hopes rather than the revival of them. “As more states lead, it will be difficult for Congress to follow “ and even more difficult to see the necessity of federal legislation,” he said. The industry will wait to see what Messrs Reid and Barton do next, and hope it’s more politically astute than the King bill.