It’s buried in the final pages of a lengthy document and totals just four paragraphs, but the section of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino bill that calls for a ban on any form of wagering over the Internet has predictably drawn the ire of online gambling proponents.

“It’s inconsistent and contradictory,” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, told Casino City earlier this week. “I’m surprised the governor would do this. I think it’s a great mistake.”

What Frank is referring to is the item found on page 28 of the 33-page bill designed to pave the way for the construction of three brick and mortar casinos in the Bay State.

The bill also proposes to stop online gambling and aims to punish any person who “knowingly transmits or receives a wager of any type by any telecommunication device…or knowingly installs or maintains said device or equipment for the transmission or receipt of wagering information,” with “imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than 2 years, or a fine of not more than $25,000, or both.”

Frank, an unabashed online gambling supporter who introduced his own bill in April that would repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and regulate online wagering Web sites, questioned the tactic of Gov. Patrick, whose office did not return repeated phone calls from Casino City regarding this story.

“I don’t understand how you can be for casinos but against letting people do the same thing in the privacy of their own homes,” he said. “I think they may have thought that this would somehow minimize some of the opposition they are getting from people who think we should ban all forms of gambling, but I think they misjudged it. I don’t think it makes any of the gambling opponents any less opposed to casinos.”

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Author Contact Info: Gary Trask, Casino City Times