With so much news coming out of the Republican Convention in Cleveland, the fact that the official GOP platform no longer calls for a ban on online gaming was easy to overlook.
It’s also odd as GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence has been a vocal opponent of online gambling. But this year’s GOP convention belonged to Donald Trump, who has not come out against online gaming.
The move could reflect the resistance the Restore America’s Wire Act—which would ban online gambling in the U.S.—received in Congress where many conservatives felt the bill infringed on state’s rights to decide on whether they wanted to allow and regulate online gambling. Trump, in his acceptance speech, did say he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would strictly interpret the constitution.
However, the bill was the brainchild of Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson, who has thrown his support behind Trump. Adelson has even created a $100 million Super PAC to support Trump, but the Republican nominee has never come out against online gambling in the campaign and voiced support for online gambling before he decided to run.
RAWA was also introduced to Congress with the sponsorship of two failed Trump opponents for the nomination – Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. In May, Graham included language similar to that contained in RAWA onto a U.S. Senate Appropriations Bill, but the language was removed from a companion bill in the House.
Pence, however, supported the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act while a congressman and has voiced his support for RAWA.
But the party now belongs to Trump, who in a 2011 interview with Forbes magazine said, “Online gambling has to happen because many other countries are doing it and like usual the US is just missing out.”
The Poker Players Alliance, a vocal critic of RAWA, issued a statement taking some credit for defeating the measure, which it lobbied against by focusing on the state’s rights issue. But the association warned that the bill probably isn’t completely dead.
“While I cannot say what a Trump presidency would mean for poker, there is some smoke. And, as they say, where there is smoke, there could be a fire,” PPA Executive Director John Pappas said in a press statement. “The story with Trump’s running mate, though, is perfectly clear. While there is smoke with Trump, Pence’s desire to usurp the states with a federal online poker prohibition is a raging inferno.”
