United States Senate Majority Leader and the Democratic Senior Senator from Nevada, Harry Reid, declared on Friday, December 14th that any discussion on a bill to legalize online poker in the U.S. is dead for the current lame duck session of Congress, due to the priority of solving the budget crisis and avoiding the fiscal cliff. In his comments, published in a story by the La Vegas Sun, Reid expressed his personal wishes that the situation could be different and that he is disappointed time won’t allow Congress to address this issue this year.
Reid also mentioned that he, along with fellow Nevada Senator, the Republican Dean Heller, are committed to ironing out this issue in a bipartisan manner and bringing it to the table before Congress.
Until this announcement it still seemed possible that the Internet poker bill that Reid himself drafted along with the Republic Senator from Arizona, Republican Jon Kyl, might still be passed by the Senate at least before Congress adjourned the 2012 session. Opponents of that bill who lauded the announcement that it was, at least for the moment, dead in the water, included Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land, the National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, the National Governors Association, and state lotteries.
If passed, such a bill would weaken a 2006 law that mandates enforcement of illegal online gambling, but in a decision by the Justice Department in late 2011, the definition of illegal online gambling was restricted to sports betting alone. US based players can play on any of these online poker sites.