DiMasi poses referendum on casinos – The Boston Globe

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Just two months after defeating Governor Deval Patrick’s casino proposal, House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi proposed yesterday to reopen the state’s heated debate on gambling by putting a nonbinding question on the November ballot.
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Senate President Therese Murray said she was open to DiMasi’s idea for a referendum, which would probably trigger a frenzy of spending by casino interests trying to sway public opinion.

But Patrick administration officials quickly signaled opposition. They said that Massachusetts residents have already spoken in favor of casino gambling in various public opinion polls and that the state should focus on life sciences and clean-energy legislation for the remainder of the 2008 legislative season.

Poker players say legal deck stacked against them – PNWLocalNews

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Some call it luck. Players call it skill. Neither on May 15 could change the fact that it’s illegal to play the game of poker for money online in the state of Washington.

Washington poker players lost a hand at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent when King County Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts ruled to uphold a 2006 law that made online gambling a Class C felony.

More than 50 members of the Poker Players Alliance, called the PPA, gathered alongside prominent poker pros Barry Greenstein and Andy Bloch outside of the Justice Center after the hearing Thursday. Wearing red “POKER IS NOT A CRIME” T-shirts and holding up signs with messages like “END POKER PROHIBITION,” they were there in support of Renton attorney Lee Rousso, the poker aficionado who started the legal battle against the constitutionality of the law.

SunHerald.com : States Move to Collect New Revenue From Sports Gambling for Critical Government Programs

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WASHINGTON, May 22 –
The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative (SSIGI) announced its support for attempts to legalize sports betting in Delaware and New Jersey. Legislators’ in both states are seeking to collect revenue from sports gambling, which is currently being lost in an underground, uncontrolled marketplace. Bookies fail to pay about $7 billion a year in federal wagering excise taxes, according to an Internal Revenue Service estimate based on a National Gambling Impact Study Commission.

“While some form of gambling is allowable in almost every state, it is totally hypocritical that there would be a line drawn in the sand for sports gambling, an activity that continues and is estimated to illegally generate up to $380 billion per year in the U.S.,” said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “A prohibition on sports gambling means that billions of dollars in much-needed tax revenue that could be used for education and other government programs is being lost to bookies and off-shore Internet gambling operators.”

In spite of misgivings from the chief of police and protests from a neighborhood congregation, the Salinas City Council has paved the way for a no-wagering-limits card room to open.

Almost a year after Police Chief Dan Ortega pulled the plug on Cap’s Saloon, the City Council voted 6-1 to modify the city’s existing ordinance regulating card rooms. The modifications were made in anticipation of an application for a card room in Oldtown Salinas.
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The strangely selective and self-defeating crackdown on Internet gambling.

On July 16, 2006, the CEO of BetOnSports.com attacked an anti–online gambling bill that the House of Representatives had overwhelmingly approved a few days before. “We want to be regulated,” David Carruthers wrote in the Baltimore Sun. “We want to be taxed. We want to be licensed. Instead of dealing with us constructively to address issues of mutual concern, these legislators prefer to pretend that they can control the Internet. Instead of protecting the public, they would rather waste time on public posturing to their partisan base.”
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House members are expected to vote on a compromise version of the Texas Hold ‘Em bill, which would levy a lower tax than first proposed.

A revised version of the bill passed the Senate late last week, and now moves on to the House.
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All across America, people are playing poker in their homes, fire halls and even community centers that also house local police headquarters. Those playing include the politicians, attorneys, law enforcement agents, and citizens from all walks of life. In many of the states, thanks to antiquated and often confusing gambling laws, these citizens are breaking the law and don’t even know it.
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The debate on gambling in Pennsylvania shifted Thursday, if only briefly, to craps, poker and blackjack, instead of whether the Legislature set up a flawed regulatory mechanism to vet who should win a slot-machine casino license.

The Democratic-led House Gaming Oversight Committee took the first step on a bill to legalize table games at the state’s licensed slots casinos, holding a hearing on it despite heavy opposition in the Senate to expanding the state’s gambling platter.
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“The pursuit of happiness:” To one Renton man, that includes the right to play poker online. He makes his argument today (Thursday) in King County Superior Court that a state law that quashes that right is unconstitutional. KUOW’s Phyllis Fletcher reports.
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