US Online Gambling Health
Care Bill Pulled
 September
25 -
Just when things looked like they were turning around for the
online gambling industry in the United States
- in the form of a bill to legalise and regulate online gambling
with the aim of subsidizing health care costs -
the carpet was again ripped out from under it when the bill was
suddenly pulled this week.
Senator Ron Wyden's bill, which
aimed to contribute billions of tax dollars
generated by legalised and
regulated online gambling
in America to the country's ailing healthcare system, was too
close to the bone for the Senator.
Despite making financial sense, the legalization of online
gambling has always been a contentious issue in the United
States.
'The last thing Senator Wyden wants to do
is make it more difficult to expand subsidies for working
families by introducing a new contentious issue to the debate,'
said Wyden's communications director, Jennifer Hoelzer.
'So when he offers the amendment, he will do it with other
funding mechanisms.'
The
news came as a big blow for supporters of a legalised and
regulated online gambling
industry in the United States. They are growing increasingly
frustrated every day that
the popular internet activity remains banned
in the very country that was built on the right to freedom and
the
freedom to choose.
Said
Congressman Barney Frank,
arguably the biggest
supporter of legalised online gambling in the American
government,
'I thought the bill was a great idea. Think about it.
Why should we leave all that money untaxed?'
Frank was referring to the fact that despite the U.S. online
gambling ban,
millions of Americans continue to gamble online.
However, as they are forced to play at offshore online gambling
sites, the
U.S. government doesn't see a cent of the resulting revenues.
Isn't it amazing that a government that spends billions of tax
dollars every day on pointless wars in dustbowl nations
overseas, seems to feel that allowing Americans
to gamble online is akin to playing poker with the anti-Christ?
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