New Anti-Online Gambling Bill Surfaces in Congress

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That appears to be the mantra of the anti-online gambling crowd, after another anti-online gambling bill, S 3322, has surfaced in the halls of Congress.

The latest effort was put forth by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and bears the not-at-all over-the-top title of, The Prevention of Deceptive or Child-Targeted Advertising in Violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

The crux of the bill implies that the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) isn’t being properly enforced, and calls on Congress to study the matter, particularly the use of cartoon characters “designed to be attractive to children.”

The bill stops short of recommending a “restoration” of the 1961 Wire Act (that is already playing in the courts at the moment) and instead calls on the government to study the situation, but under the auspices that online gambling is illegal, despite the numerous states that have legalized online poker, casino games, sports betting, and lottery products.

Essentially, since the 2018 Department of Justice opinion on the Wire Act has failed to scare states away from legalizing online gambling, the new bill is attempting to spook the financial institutions that are processing the payments for legal online gambling websites in the US.

Please Report Back with Your Findings

Based on the language of the bill, the findings of the studies are supposed to be predetermined:

an assessment of the means by which online casino and lottery gambling websites or mobile applications receive funds from players for gambling activities in light of the prohibition on the use of financial instruments in the United States for unlawful internet gambling under subchapter IV of chapter 53 of title 31, United States Code; 

the prevalence of both targeted and non-targeted advertising for online slot machines, lotteries, table games, and similar offerings that are offered by online casinos and lotteries and… employ content that is targeted toward children, such as through the use of cartoon characters or themes based on children’s fairy tales;

efforts by internet website and mobile application developers to deceptively present unlawful internet gambling opportunities, including online slot machines, lotteries, table games, and similar offerings as part of non-gambling gameplay or application use within websites and mobile applications offered to users in the United States; and to users of websites and mobile applications that are targeted toward or known to be frequently accessed by children;

A Familiar Argument

Interestingly, the use of “cartoon characters” was a talking point used by the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling in the past, which may offer a clue as to who is backing Sen. Cotton’s legislation.

CSIG lobbyist Jon Bruning wrote the following in 2018 about the dangers of online gambling:

“Other schemes employed overseas to lure children include using cartoon and storybook characters, placing online gambling links on youth soccer fan pages and listing a gambling website on a package of free jellybeans without a warning label.”

A Snowball’s Chance in Hell

It’s a strange time in politics, and the sudden emergence of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel opinion on the Wire Act that undid a 2011 opinion should give us pause that anything is possible.

However, with a divided Congress, and the fingerprints of Sheldon Adelson and CSIG all over it, this bill seems destined for the scrap heap.