North Dakota Representative Attempts to License Online Gambling

New federal legislation may derail North Dakota Representative Jim Kasper's plan to revive a proposal to make North Dakota the first state to license Internet poker sites.

The measure, which the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved last week, would ban Internet gambling sites, including online poker rooms, from taking money from customers in the United States.

It changes a 1961 anti-gambling law, called the Wire Act, to explicitly apply its terms to Internet gambling. It requires the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department to write regulations to block gambling money transfer by American banks.

Approval from the Senate and President Bush is still needed for the bill to become law. The Senate has not taken up the measure, and may not do so before the current session of Congress concludes at year's end.

Kasper said he has not reviewed the legislation, which is a meshing of separate bills introduced by Representatives Bod Goodlatte, R-Va, and Jim Leach, R-Iowa. The House endorsed it 317-93. One of its supporters was Representative Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D.

During the 2005 Legislature, Kasper sponsored a bill and a North Dakota constitutional amendment to allow North Dakota to license and regulate Internet poker sites. The majority of online gambling sites are based offshore in several countries, including Costa Rica and Antigua, an Island nation in the eastern Carribbean.

August 09, 2006
John Tucker