Sometimes important news slips by us. As dedicated as we are to following the saga of H.R. 2267 (The Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act), we missed the part where the enemies of online gambling (and, let’s be honest, of many more important things as well) managed to get three amendments added to the bill.
The Bachus-Bachman Amendment is named after two Representatives who have proven themselves to be opposed to . However, these amendments seem relatively reasonable, in the sense that they’re not advocating Creationism, or calling the President an anti-American Muslim Socialist who was born Somewhere Else (at least, not this time).
The first amendment (the only one officially called “The Bachus-Bachman Amendment) requires that a ‘blacklist’ is kept to deny a license to anyone “that illegally accepted American wagers or bets”, as well as anyone “affiliated with organized crime or convicted of racketeering and other gambling related crimes”.
The latter is reasonable, though you might argue that the government has no right to restrict your business options after you’ve paid your debt to society. But the first category really makes us wonder — just as with the original UIGEA, the definition of ‘illegal’ is going to be tricky, enforcement is going to be rare and expensive (in time and taxpayer dollars), and it basically exists for politicians to claim that they’re law and order types.
To show just how well Rep. Bachman understands the bill, here’s how she describes it on her (taxpayer-funded) dot-gov site: “H.R. 2267…would effectively provide every household in America with around the clock access to an online casino in their home.”
Obviously, every household means those that have Internet access (in reality, about 3/4 at most, but okay), and this population has honestly always had access to online casinos –the legislation simply changes the legal status, plus adds a number of consumer protections that don’t currently exist, plus creates a regulatory and tax structure (ideally, to take some of the burden away from individual taxpayers).
Not only that, Rep. Bachman specifically uses the phrase “online casino”, which is the least likely type of Internet gambling to be permitted (aside from Major League sportsbetting, which was eliminated in another of what looks to be many more amendments before this is over). Perhaps she was afraid that using poker or bingo as an example would cost her too many votes?
She also characterizes the bill as taking away jobs from American workers, which is difficult to accept no matter how one looks at it. There are no US-based online gambling sites at the present, so nobody would be at risk of downsizing if the bill passed…and there are no alternative proposals to set up US-only online gambling (and even if there were, we highly doubt that Bachman and Bachus would be enthusiastic supporters).
And we haven’t even begun to examine the second and third amendments. The former “would revoke the license of any internet gambling corporation which targets its advertising or marketing to minors”. Hard to argue against that…though again, interpretation will be tricky in a climate that still regards animation, video games, and pop music to be geared toward ‘minors’, despite all statistical evidence to the contrary.
The latter amendment “would prevent child support delinquents from being able to gamble away money that should be used to take care of their children”. Again, her heart (or public relations sense) is in the right place, we suppose. However, the identification, implementation, and outright implications for personal freedom are at least mildly staggering.
We’re surprised that these amendments would ever be passed; they’re most likely an attempt to burden or weaken the bill to the point that it does no good to anyone. Perhaps it is another example of a Capitol Hill compromise in which nobody wins, especially not the US citizens.
Published 1 week ago
