Jim McDermott, who is one of the most active politicians when it comes to online gambling legalization in the US, has proposed an addition to the famous bill of Barney Frank, which is legally known as HR2267. The Washington representative offered a companion bill, that doesn’t deal with the matter of legalization itself, but instead recommends using the possible tax revenue from internet gambling for funding child care programs of the government.
HR4976, better known to the public as the Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act, was introduced by Jim McDermott in the House of Representatives less than two months ago and in spite of the fact that it has just 3 co-sponsors, will soon face a hearing on the 19th and 20th of May. At the same time, the HR2267 of Barney Frank that has more than 60 co-sponsors and preceded the bill of Jim McDermott by more than a year is still waiting for a hearing that hasn’t been finally scheduled yet, being postponed now and then. The reason might be that Frank’s bill is in the House Financial Services Committee, which has currently been quite busy with more pressing economical issues because of the economical crisis, while HR4976 fell under the jurisdiction of the House Ways and Means Committee. Because of the fact that HWMC representatives are less than enough acquainted with the online gambling issue, a number of legalization supporting parties try to spread among them all the necessary information. The executive director of the Poker Players Alliance has admitted spending a lot of time to enlighten as many committee members as possible about the most pressing matters of the question.
On May 19 and May 20 the legislators will have to figure out whether the possible tax income from online gambling is as high as it’s currently thought. Depending on these estimations, they will understand which social programs of the government might be sponsored by the tax revenue from internet casinos on a constant basis. The fact that the HR4976 bill has also been mistakenly sent to the House Education and Labor Committee proves that the majority of politicians take the matter of legalization less seriously than it deserves. That is why such issues as online customer protection and the correlation between problem gambling and online casinos development must also be discussed on the session without exclusively focusing on the taxation benefits.