Do you hear it? That sucking sound is Sheldon Adelson’s hopes for a United States devoid of online poker dying an embarrassing death. The hole where his RAWA-occupied heart should be will now have to be filled with Andy Abboud’s cell phone prop. Late last week, Gambling Compliance reported that Adelson is shifting his focus away from outlawing online poker in the U.S. and towards a federal ban on illegal, offshore internet gambling sites. Adelson’s anti-online poker bill, the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) appears to have lost its legs.
In a weekly update, Poker Players Alliance VP of player relations Rich Muny scoffed at claims from the Adelson camp that online poker is a lost cause in the States, anyway. Andy Abboud, vice president of government relations & community development at Las Vegas Sands and terrible Congressional hearing witness, said of poker, “It is the Edsel of gaming. It’s a bust. It’s a lemon. Nevada doesn’t even report [Internet poker revenue] anymore as a line item. It’s just added into poker numbers.”
Basically, Abboud is saying, “No, NO! WE didn’t LOSE! We’re just moving on because poker already sucks so much!”
Muny retorted, “Of course, while we expect online poker to grow substantially as more states come onboard, the licensed market has not flopped. It has been a tremendous regulatory success, with no instances of underage or out-of-state play. And, the broader iGaming market has enjoyed steady growth, with New Jersey seeing a 26% increase in 2015.”
PPA Executive Director John Pappas told Adelson that he should take the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” stance, saying, “If Sands is serious about addressing the unregulated offshore market, they should join us in trying to replace it with a regulated U.S. market.”
In the update, Muny congratulated poker’s supporters:
I credit the hard work of PPA and the poker community for this turn of events. Adelson was never able to gain any traction with RAWA. We beat his old-school approach to the punch at every turn, especially on social media. We beat his lobbying back by doing the hard work of reaching out to conservative and libertarian organizations with a message of liberty and limited government. And, we destroyed his show hearings in Congress with the facts and with the tenacity to share these facts continuously with the members of the committees holding these hearings.
He added, though, that it is always possible for Adelson to try to resurrect RAWA. The billionaire conservative political financier could certainly find a way to get a legislator desperate to reach into Daddy Adelson’s pocket to sneak the Act into some piece of legislation somewhere. This is no time to get complacent; continue to remind lawmakers that RAWA or any similar anti-poker legislation is a terrible idea.
