Senate bill
calls for regulating, not banning, online poker
WASHINGTON — The effort to roll back an Internet
gambling ban has reached the Senate, with a bill by Sen. Robert Menendez that
calls for licensing and regulating online poker and other "
games of skill" instead of outlawing
them.
Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat,
intends to introduce the bill today, according to the Poker Players Alliance,
which lobbies against the 2006 ban.
This would be the first bill
introduced in the Senate to weaken the ban, which prohibits banks and credit
card companies from accepting payments for online
gambling.
The
Senate bill's introduction follows a 30-16 vote on Sept. 16 by the House
Financial Services Committee that would require federal agencies to define
unlawful Internet gambling before completing regulations to enforce the
ban.
"This action by Senator Menendez is
yet another example that prohibitions on Internet gambling, and specifically
poker, will not work to protect consumers," former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y.,
who is the chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, said in a
statement.
The
Menendez bill is similar to legislation introduced in June 2007 in the House by
Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla.
Wexler's bill has 22 co-sponsors,
including Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jon Porter,
R-Nev.
