Homeland Security Bill Has Clause To "Undermine" E-Gambling

A little-noticed section of a new federal Homeland Security bill contains a clause to ban Americans from using credit cards to bet at online gambling Web sites.

"It is regrettable that, rather than engaging in an open public dialogue on the issue of online gaming, some elected leaders would use the important issue of homeland security as a thinly-veiled opportunity to impose their own narrow views on Americans," BETonSPORTS chief executive David Carruthers said in a statement.

The clause was added to the House bill by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama).

Carruthers said the clause would undermine the very financial transparency the Homeland Security bill purports to enhance. The bill otherwise calls for protecting military personnel from bad financial sales practice as well as several portions tied to terrorism and the 9/11 Commission report.

"When the millions of American consumers who place bets online are unable to use their credit cards to do so," Carruthers said, "they are forced to use other financial tools, most of which are significantly less transparent than credit card transactions.

"Some members of Congress have been unwilling to acknowledge that gambling is, particularly where practiced openly and legally, a safe and legitimate form of entertainment," he continued. "Millions of Americans now enjoy participating in office Super Bowl pools, purchasing lottery tickets, visiting church or charity- sponsored bingo halls, or enjoying time at casino hotels and resorts. When properly regulated, online gaming is no different than any of these activities and provides the additional benefits of privacy, security and control."

Bachus previously tried and failed to get a full bill barring credit card use or "any bank instrument" for online gambling bets through the full Congress on its own.

"Virtual casinos are setup by criminals to operate beyond the reach of U.S. law or state laws from offshore or foreign locations," he said at the time the full House passed that bill, in June 2003. “The people who create these sites do it for one reason and one reason only – money. Take the financial incentives away and it stops. The negative effects of gambling have been widely documented. All too often, gambling results in addiction, bankruptcy, divorce, crime and moral decline. Internet gambling magnifies the destructiveness of gambling by bringing the casino into your home. One student reportedly lost $10,000 on Internet sports gambling over a three-month period."

Bachus isn't exactly a friend of the Adult Internet, either. He blasted the Supreme Court's shootdown of the Child Online Protection Act in June as "a slap in the face of parents who are trying to protect their children from the corrupting influence of this illicit material. It is yet one more example of how the extremists… are assaulting American values and American families with their radical agenda…. The idea of making pornography readily available to the extremely small minority of adults who want it should take precedent over protecting our children is contemptible."

BETonSPORTS said they plan a coming series of college campus debates on Internet gambling.