You Got to Know When to Fold ‘Em

Pennsylvania has officially became the fourth state to legalize online gaming. Hopefully Pennsylvania Representatives Charlie Dent and Brian Fitzpatrick known when to fold them and will stop trying to make online gaming a federal crime.

Edward Woodson at the Liberty Unyielding blog has a very good article on how the efforts to ban online gaming violate the 10th Amendment:

However, there is currently legislation that has been being pushed at the federal level over and over again in an attempt to overshadow states’ rights. The Restoration of America’s Wire Act  (RAWA) has been introduced numerous times over the last few years each time by a different Senator or Congressman that seems to have a mutually beneficial relationship with big money donor Sheldon Adelson.

As the CEO and Chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Adelson has a vested interest in prohibiting all online gaming. It’s his competition. Unlike other brick and mortar casino corporations that have embraced the iGaming market, Adelson wants to outlaw it to force people into his casinos.

RAWA is legislation that was written by Adelson’s lobbyists and is an attempt to rewrite the Federal Wire Act of 1961. It would ban most forms of online gaming — like poker and state lotteries. RAWA benefits only Sheldon Adelson and his Casino-Resort business model and, in the process, tramples on the Tenth Amendment by removing state’s rights to set their own gaming and lottery laws.

The states don’t need the federal government to step in and make a blanket decision that will force them either to prohibit or to legalize gambling. New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware, three states that have already legalized online gambling, have had very positive results in the short period that they have been operating.

New Jersey’s iGaming tax revenue is already over $100 million and has created thousands of new jobs. And contrary to Adelson’s ongoing scare tactics, the moral fiber of the people of New Jersey is still intact as the state successfully regulates gaming. The decision to legalize gambling belongs with the individual states, not the federal government and certainly not with one very wealthy donor: It’s what Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry would have wanted.

Read the whole piece here.