Poker bill author, Senator Rod Wright confirmed to ESPN Radio Los Angeles yesterday that he has partnered with New Jersey officials for this cause by saying: “You’re talking about an industry that’s already a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. We allow three states—Oregon, Delaware and Nevada—to have sports betting. In addition, if you take the internet that is kinda-sorta now going – internet poker in particular but some of the other online gaming that takes place – you’re talking about an industry, in the United States, that’s probably close to US$15 to US$20bn a year already.”
In New Jersey, New Jersey Senator Lesniak, iMEGA and two groups representing horse racing interest in the state filed last March to have this issue come to the forefront of interest. Lesniak argues saying that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992 is unconstitutional as four states alone are exempted under the law to reap tax revenue while others are prohibited from doing so.
Wright says that experts claim that legal sports betting has the potential to generate $1 billion in revenue for the state of California alone and by challenging this federal law, California, as well as other states will reap the rewards. Roderick Wright chairs the committee that oversees gambling in the state and he has asked Legislature to join the suit. Wright says, in reference to places like Vegas, “I don’t know how much longer we can afford to basically be providing the revenue to all these other states from California people.”
To gamble on a sporting event in California is a misdemeanor and the state is prohibited as well under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act to sanction sports betting. Nelson Rose, a gambling lawsuit expert and professor from Whittier College says that the law has “major constitutional problems.”
Other movements are happening in the direction of legalizing Internet gambling like the measure that was recently approved by the House of Financial Services Committee by Barney Frank this past Wednesday to allow online poker bets and to challenge the current laws.
An expert at the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, Marc Lefkowitz says that it is widely estimated that more than $100 billion is wagered in the U.S., both legally and illegally, on sporting events each year while states like Nevada take home a share of the tax on an annual figure amounts of $2.6 billion on sports betting legally. In the last year, according to Frank Streshley, a senior research analyst for the Nevada Gaming Commission, the tax brought in more than $9 million.
The fairness in this arrangement is far, far from being equalized but starting to challenge it is a definite start.
04 August, 2010