Adelson push stuck in the mud?; Alabama wants gambling

Tireless blogger Steve Ruddock contends that we have good reason to be optimistic about the fate of Sheldon Adelson‘s fatwa against Sheldon_Adelson dye jobInternet gambling. For starters, there’s the sheer slothfulness of Congress itself: How many times has it promised, say, comprehensive immigration reform and delivered squat? Besides, Adelson’s congressional flunkies have moved off Restoring America’s Wire Act (“a beached whale,” according to a GOP lobbyist) and are trying the more oblique route of freezing state-by-state legalization — which still raises vexing Tenth Amendment questions — while conducting a fan dance “study” of the issue. You can bet they wouldn’t be advocating going the study route unless the conclusion, forged by Luddites, were foregone. One attempt to sneak it through as a parasite on omnibus legislation has already failed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) is reported as carving out exemptions for online lotteries — which would avoid pissing off consumers in several battleground states in 2016, including his next-door neighbors in GrahamGeorgia. Throw in exemptions for horseracing, fantasy sports and charitable gaming, and RAWA has more holes than fabric. It also exempts the games that have the worst odds, while targeting the player-friendly ones. Conservatives are divided right down the middle on RAWA. Rep. Jason Chaffetz‘s efforts to ramrod RAWA through the House Judiciary Committee were thwarted by committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R).

In the case of Adelson’s liberal allies, they’re exemplified by ex-senator Blanche Lincoln, who penned an incoherent op-ed in which she tried to simultaneously paint Internet gambling as a business disaster and an imminent threat to Little Johnny. If the free market is really selecting Internet gambling for extinction, why get one’s bloomers in a bunch? As for Adelson, he can (by his own admission) barely operate a computer or a cell phone, proving yet again that it’s the empty wagon that makes the loudest noise.

* Internet gambling in California, the most coveted market of all, has been hamstrung by several issues, especially the divisive “bad actor” clause. However, Churchill Downs is putting its money on legalization. It has inked deals with Crystal Casino & Hotel in Los Angeles and Ocean’s 11 in Oceanside to offer ‘Net betting, news that only surfaced this week in a Churchill Downs SEC filing.

* Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R, left) is spitting into the wind in his opposition to legalized gambling, at least according to one poll, Bentleyconducted by the Alabama Jobs Foundation. It found that 89% of Alabamians at least want to vote on the issue, 69% favor a parlay of a lottery to fund education and of casino gambling … and 77% prefer that scheme to giving the Poarch Creek Indians casino exclusivity. While this could easily have been a push poll, it appears to jibe with the recreational preferences of Alabama residents. Said Bentley’s prime adversary, state Senate President Pro-Tem Del Marsh (R), “The voters of Alabama are speaking as loud and clear as they can on this issue … And just as important, they do not support raising taxes, period.”

* The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas‘ close brush with disaster was mitigated in large part because it sits cheek-by-jowl with a Clark County fire station. Were it not for that providential proximity, we’d be looking back on last weekend’s conflagration quite differently.

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