The Impact Of U.S. Elections On Online Gambling

0 Comments   Email   Print

It is natural for any interest group to introspect after a major election as to how the results would impact them. The online gambling lobbies in the United States are assessing whether the November 6 election results were beneficial for them or not. They were beneficial, but in a negative sort of way. The November 6 elections were a victory for the Democrats. A Democratic president was reelected and the Senate retained its Democratic majority with Senator Harry Reid in charge. This does not imply that online gambling legislation will be fast tracked. But had the Republicans won on either or both of these fronts, then any hope of legalized online gambling would be put to rest for four years at least. This is because the Republican Party manifesto was clearly against legalization of online gambling. Also the Republicans had received a fair bit of funding from the anti online gambling lobby from Nevada.

As things stand the process of legalization can plod on. Some experts are even giving the Reid Kyl federal online poker bill a chance of being passed in the lame duck session. In President Obama’s first term there could not be any movement on legislating online gambling bills. The legislators were preoccupied with much more important issues. This situation has not changed. Therefore if any online gambling bill is to be passed it will have to be attached to some big ticket bill like tax cuts, appropriations and defense bills. Normally the Congress puts off these important bills till the new guard takes charge in January, preferring not to handle such things during the lame duck session. But because there is no change in the President, Senate or House in this election, there is talk of resolving some big issues in December 2012 and January 2013. Therefore there is a possibility of attaching the Reid Kyl federal online poker bill onto some larger legislation.

Another incident in these elections favorable to online gambling was that Republican Senator Dean Heller from Nevada was reelected, defeating his opponent Shelley Berkley. Though this may sound paradoxical, it is very important in the scheme of legalizing online gambling. Senator Heller is personally for getting online poker regulated federally and leads Nevada’s interest in this regard. What is more important is that since he is a Republican, he can garner the little support needed from his party in pushing through any online gambling legislation. Not too long back Senator Harry Reid had said that he needed about 15 additional Republican votes in order to get his legislation passed. This meant the support of about 15 Republican legislators who are not current supporters of online gambling. After this election several Republicans will become “lame duck” Senators because they will have no compulsion to appease their anti-gambling constituencies by blocking a federal online poker bill. Therefore it should not be too difficult for Heller to find the 15 Republican Senators needed.

Despite the effort being made it is unlikely that any online poker legislation will be passed in the eight weeks before the next session of Congress. What would be then required is a well considered and comprehensive strategy to get at least online poker, if not all online gambling, legalized and regulated before the next Presidential elections.

Article Tools

 Email     Print     Digg     Del.icio.us    StumbleUpon

Comments

 Add Comment

Add Comment

More Articles