Nevada’s Republican Senator Dean Heller met with the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review Journal last week to discuss online gaming. And it turns out he doesn’t like it. Even though he has teamed up in the past with his Democrat counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid, on efforts to legalize online poker.
Heller was echoing viewpoints of Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, who has launched a group to oppose online gaming, using his considerable wealth as the engine to drive it. Heller didn’t shy away from the Adelson connection.
“I think Adelson brings up some reasonable concerns,” Heller told the R-J. “And to have the wild wild West as an empire of gambling for the country would have some serious social implications. And I think that’s what he’s concerned with.”
Heller says he’s most concerned about the impact of online gaming on his land-based constituents.
“I think the devastation for bricks and mortar casinos in this state would just be a final nail, I think, in keeping these businesses healthy,” Heller said.
Heller brushed aside the fact that most gaming companies, with the exception of LVS and possibly Wynn Resorts, are actively pursuing and preparing for online gaming, saying “they’re just trying to keep their shareholders happy.”
He says he’s been working with Reid to develop a bill that resurrects the Wire Act, the law which the federal government had used for years to ban online gaming until a letter from the Justice Department in late 2011 said intrastate online gaming could occur. The letter said the only thing prohibited by the Wire Act was online sports wagering.
But not all online gaming is bad, according to Heller. Both Nevada senators want to created a carve out for online poker.
“Games like poker, I think, it takes a little more skill,” he says.
Heller says that he and Reid want to protect Nevada at the same time making it a national issue.
“We’re trying to keep it from being just a Nevada issue,” Heller said. “So Harry and I are trying to look for help from members in each of our conferences to come forward with legislation that, hopefully, long term provides a solution for us.”
Heller admits that most senators want to ignore the issue. And he also admits that he has to walk a tightrope in opposing online gaming.
“You have members of the AGA taking one position then you have members taking a different position,” Heller said. “So it’s kind of tough trying to keep on the straight and narrow when this is an issue that changes every day—who’s for it and who’s against it.”
Poker blogger John Mehaffey dismantled most of Heller’s arguments in a post on USPoker.com, and he says any bill developed by the two Silver State senators is dead on arrival.
“It is hard to imagine this bill has any chance of passing,” he writes. “It appears that it would originate from two Nevada senators as a way to prevent the expansion of gambling. That immediately gets it tagged as hypocritical legislation. Reid may be able to get it to the floor of the U.S. Senate, but it would still have trouble passing. Its chance of passage in the Republican controlled House is about zero, where Reid’s name associated with it might make it automatically dismissed. There are also states’ rights issues and the fact many social conservatives will see this as an expansion of gambling since online poker is given an exemption.”
