In the lame-duck, Congress is trying to push through a bill that will ban online gambling.
Follow the money. Who will want to outlaw online gambling? The live gambling casinos in the USA, of course. It’s not that Congress has developed a sudden morality against gambling.
With the media attention focused largely on the president-elect’s antics going on in Trump Tower, the lame duck Congress pushes on largely overlooked. Unfortunately that’s when the legislature can be most dangerous.
For example, while the country has spent most of the week debating whether Donald Trump’s deal with Carrier Air Conditioning was either benign or the worst thing to ever happen to American capitalism, Congress is busy moving forward with a proposal that would impose a Federal ban on online gambling.
The bill, called the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, is the latest attempt to prevent American’s from accessing popular games such as online poker. A prior law, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, made it illegal for financial services companies to process payments used for gambling sites, and led to American online poker players seeing billions of dollars in assets frozen in 2011.
Luckily the UIGEA offered some loopholes. First, it did not explicitly ban gambling for non-sporting events, so in theory Americans could still access online poker sites if they found a way around payment restrictions. Second, since it was a Federal law, it only applied to interstate commerce.
So RAWA not only deprives Americans of the basic freedom of spending their money as they so choose, it’s a blatant violation of the 10th Amendment as three states — New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada — have expressly legalized online gambling, with seven more showing interest. The fact that it is supported by Senator Mike Lee, who often talks about the importance of the 10th Amendment, is a disappointing reminder that even politicians that talk a good game shouldn’t be trusted with your rights.
While it’s not surprising that Congress is hard at work trying to find new liberties to take away, it’s fair to ask why is online gambling in the crosshairs now. After all, outside of Jeb Bush coming out in favor of cracking down on fantasy football leagues, it was hardly a noteworthy subject during campaign season. So why are legislators such as Lee, Tom Cotton, Jason Chaffetz, and Lindsey Graham trying to do this now?
The answer is simple: paying off campaign debt.
Via Mises Wire