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Opinion
Apr. 26, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Overturning the Web gambling ban

If repeal of legislation won't fly, neutering it just might

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, has long been a foe of the federal ban on Internet gambling. He's failed so far, however, to muster enough support to repeal the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

So he and others are now trying another approach: telling federal bureaucrats to pretend the law doesn't exist.

On April 10, Rep. Frank and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced a measure that would prohibit the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System from proposing, prescribing or implementing any regulations required by the ban.

Given that the ban burdens banks and other institutions with monitoring online financial transactions in an effort to discourage adults from gambling at their computers, a moratorium on implementing or crafting regulations necessary to enforce prohibition would effectively overturn the measure.

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    • Rep. Frank argues that banks have more important things to do than waste time investigating whether an individual paid off his online bookie in Belize.

    Besides, "Representatives from the regulatory agencies themselves admitted that there are substantial problems in crafting regulations to implement the (ban) in a manner that does not have a substantial adverse effect on the efficiency of the nation's payment system," wrote Rep. Frank, Rep. Paul and three other members of the committee in a letter sent to all members of Congress.

    Whether Rep. Frank's bill stands a better chance of surviving than his previous attempts at an outright repeal of the prohibition on online wagering remains to be seen. Why, after all, would somebody support one, but not the other?

    Regardless, Reps. Frank and Paul are doing the right thing. One way or another, lawmakers should pull the plug on the ridiculous Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

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    John F wrote on April 26, 2008 09:56 AM: I note the editors took care to mention that Ron Paul is a Republican from Texas. Why didn't they bother to point out that Barney Frank is a Massachusetts Democrat?

    I understand that this page is for opinion, not straight reporting, but this kind of petty stuff is just ridiculous. Can't the editors give a Democrat credit for anything?


    James wrote on April 26, 2008 07:59 AM: HaciendaMike,

    There are quite a few nut cases that comment here at the R-J including 'b'. These depressed individual's sad lives consist of bashing and blaming everyone except themselves for their miserable existence.


    HaciendaMike wrote on April 26, 2008 07:29 AM: Please forgive my misspellings in the earlier post. The battery on my wireless keyboard is failing.


    Mike L. wrote on April 26, 2008 06:57 AM: Government is an organized conspiracy to regulate and tax us, and even put us in prison for simply placing a bet online. What evil scum.


    HaciendaMike wrote on April 26, 2008 06:57 AM: The kind of mean-spirited personal attack that 'b' makes represents their ignorance and inability to discuss an issue on it's merits. When you don't have a logical, valid argument about an issue, muck up the messenger, right?

    It's this kind of feeble-minded attack that makes it so easy to dismiss the author as both ignorant and irrelevant.

    As a member of the Poker Players Aliance, I fully support Rep. Frank on this and other issues. Poker has long been a part of the social fabric of our American socirty, and of the core business of this state, and this ban was snuck into a middle of the night vote on a port security bill, becuase the self-appointed morality squad led by Sen. Kyl couldn't get it to fly on its own merits.

    Rep. Frank is correct to attack the problem any way he can, because the original prohibition was wrong and onerous to truly free Americans.

    Of course, b espouses that this professional legislator who is certainly more familiar with how to move bills through the halls of congress than b himself, should instead abuse children. What a sick, mean-spiriter, and ultimately evil little mind this initial of a human has.


    b wrote on April 26, 2008 05:31 AM: Barny Frank should go back to sexually abusing young boys and leave the legislating to people who can handle it.