- Joined
- Jan 8, 2008
- Messages
- 67,264
The online gambling bills passed by state legislatures in the United States appear to be jinxed. First the New Jersey bill was turned down by the governor. Now it is the turn of the Washington DC online gambling bill. When the bill was passed there was much celebration and hope that the law would be implemented by the year end. However, an editorial article in the Washington Post this week reveals the secrecy and machinations that were involved in the passing of the bill.
The amendment to allow the D.C. Lottery to offer online gambling in a limited manner in Washington DC was slipped into the supplemental budget enacted in December 2010. This was done at the initiative of independent councilor Michael A. Brown. Washington Post reports that the chief financial officer and the attorney general had both questioned the legality of this measure. The then mayor Adrian M. Fenty was not consulted. Despite that, there was no public hearing or public debate or committee review. No one gave any explanation for the bypassing of the "normal process of enacting legislation".
According to the Washington Post article an even more grave issue is that Brown did not disclose that he was employed by the legal firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge (EAPD) as a senior public policy adviser in the government relations department when he drafted the amendment. He was paid a salary of over $240,000 in 2010. The clients of EAPD include companies that provide gaming equipment, software and other services; casino owners; financers to those involved in online gambling activities. Washington Post specifically named GTech, whose subsidiary GTechG2 is an online gambling software provider. All these businesses would potentially benefit from legalized online gambling in Washington DC and even in other states that follow the same path in the future. EAPD was a sponsor of a recent conference in San Francisco that featured a session on online gambling. Mr. Brown was a speaker at that session, discussing political insights into legalization and regulation of online gambling.
Read entire article here.
The amendment to allow the D.C. Lottery to offer online gambling in a limited manner in Washington DC was slipped into the supplemental budget enacted in December 2010. This was done at the initiative of independent councilor Michael A. Brown. Washington Post reports that the chief financial officer and the attorney general had both questioned the legality of this measure. The then mayor Adrian M. Fenty was not consulted. Despite that, there was no public hearing or public debate or committee review. No one gave any explanation for the bypassing of the "normal process of enacting legislation".
According to the Washington Post article an even more grave issue is that Brown did not disclose that he was employed by the legal firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge (EAPD) as a senior public policy adviser in the government relations department when he drafted the amendment. He was paid a salary of over $240,000 in 2010. The clients of EAPD include companies that provide gaming equipment, software and other services; casino owners; financers to those involved in online gambling activities. Washington Post specifically named GTech, whose subsidiary GTechG2 is an online gambling software provider. All these businesses would potentially benefit from legalized online gambling in Washington DC and even in other states that follow the same path in the future. EAPD was a sponsor of a recent conference in San Francisco that featured a session on online gambling. Mr. Brown was a speaker at that session, discussing political insights into legalization and regulation of online gambling.
Read entire article here.
Are you kidding me? They "slipped it in"??? Where did we hear that before?
