Bachus Confuses Internet Cafes With Online Gambling

The leading voice against regulated online gambling cited curious cases as reason to oppose Barney Frank's bill.

During the markup to deal with Resolution 2267, the bill proposing online gambling regulation, opponent Spencer Bachus repeatedly noted a piece of writing within the Orlando Sentinel as heralding the incipient dangers of Internet gaming. Bachus said the paper bemoaned the lure Internet cafes posed to children, and argued this meant accepting online casinos means subjecting kids to risk.

Bachus repeated the citation quite a few times through the process the discussion by the home Financial Services Committee, as though he had discovered a troublesome kernel of fact gaming proponents couldn't refute nor digest. However the Alabama Republican had either accidentally or deliberately muddied the water with misleading information.

Bachus said that some areas of Florida had legalized Internet gambling, that is allowed at these cafes. The facts are that the cafes shouldn't have license to function any type of gambling, but that they exist in a grey area of the law under the definition of "sweepstakes."

While the games played on the cafes are on computers, as a part of the design to squeeze into the grey area, money is handled both out and in by the shop. Therefore, failure to secure the gambling from children would fall on a land-based type of gaming, and an unregulated one as well. If anything, Bachus' citation argues for H.R. 2267, and the will for Internet casino regulation.

For Bachus to be a motive force behind the UIGEA online gambling ban, and yet not have in mind that neither has Florida passed its own Internet gambling rules nor are Internet cafes kind of like online gambling, is calling for quite a suspension of disbelief. This implies the committee's ranking member was purposely disingenuous for loss of any valid argument.

Clearly the opposite committee members didn't see Bachus' reasoning as persuasive, because the measure glided by a 41-22 vote, advancing to the whole House of Representatives.

Published on July 31, 2010 by EdBradley

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