As Australia’s Parliament is taking a vote on the fate of online poker in their country, a similar piece of legislation resurfaced in the United States.
In the last article we briefly mentioned the Wire Act, an anti-online gambling bill. The reason it’s been in the news lately is the current Attoreny General, Jeff Sessions was asked about his former colleague Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina, and answered that he would "revisit and study it" and also stated that he is "shocked" by the Obama administration’s memorandum that allows three states (Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware) to regulate online gambling in their states.
Since then a former Republican Congressman from Georgia wrote a strongly opinionated op-ed on thehill.com against the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA). Lynn Westmoreland wrote the following, stressing the point that the states’ rights enshrined in the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment allows them to make their own decision on the matter:
"As I was following the legislation to allow “destination resort” casinos in Georgia, I noticed that the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) had been reintroduced in Congress. Proponents claim that they simply want to protect children from online gambling—and who could be against that? But it is yet another example of a "special circumstance” bill that would override decisions made by the people of individual states. (…)
While casino magnates like Sheldon Adelson may support outlawing online games as a way to drive business to their brick-and-mortar casinos, even Georgians who oppose gambling should recognize this as a subtle attempt to centralize even more power in Washington."
The Federal Wire act is a 1961 bill that prohibits placing bets by using a "wire communication facility", which was used to justify banning online gambling before. Let’s hope we’re not going back to those days.
