U.S. gambling bill has 70 co-sponsors

[The Buzz]

Barney Frank's bid to regulate Internet gambling in the United States is slowly gaining support. Of course, as vinism has noted, it all might be moot this year, but Frank's bill is up to 70 co-sponsors after California Republican John Campbell threw his support behind it.

However, some provisions Campbell has put into the bill haven't been well received by the online gambling community.

From Bluff Europe:

Campbell was concerned with a number of things – he supports the idea of online gamblers being able to set a loss limit, see the odds of winning (OnGame was way ahead with all-in odds) and select which RNG to use when they play – like that’ll make a difference to the fish.

“When you take all of this together, many of the objections put forth to this bill should be handled by this amendment,” said Campbell. “We have a number of consumer protections that do not currently exist online.” “When you take all of this together, many of the objections put forth to this bill should be handled by this amendment. We have a number of consumer protections that do not currently exist online.”

Despite this, objections were made to Campbell’s changes, and none from a more prominent figure than iMEGA Chairman Joe Brennan, who said: "Campbell’s amendment puts all of the costs of prevention on the operators. It essentially liberates individuals from personal responsibility and casts the industry as nothing but a harbinger of doom for people who are powerless. I can understand that people want to put protections in place, but you’re talking about upping the ante. How many operators will be able to afford that?"

[Anthony]

Typical action of congress to make this more complicated than it has to be.

[dhayman]

As I said in another thread, I appreciate Barney Frank's efforts, because the U.S. could sure use the tax revenue boost, but unfortunately, this bill is being presented at the wrong time (election year). Lots of incumbents are battling for their political lives this November, and the last thing they want to do is **** off the morale majority by advocating online gambling. IMO, 2011 (post mid-term elections) was the right time for this bill; not this year. They failed to look at the big picture at this time.

[webber286]

I don't really see where the additional burden comes in from allowing gamblers to set loss limits (seems like a relatively easy technology fix), posting the odds of winning (this is readily available already) and choosing the RNG (I actually don't know what this means, don't online casinos use a single RNG?). Maybe that last one is the sticking point that I'm missing, but on the surface of it, these sound reasonable to me.

[Anthony]

It is nice there are now 70 co-sponsors of the bill. How many of these 70 will still be in the next congress? I am not overly optimistic that anything will happen this year.

[davenewgates]

I too feel the same way. But I'm thankful that there was an increasing number of supporters for the online gambling industry.