While Representatives Barney Frank and Jim McDermott may not have achieved all their aims during their appearance before the House Ways & Means Committee last week, they did manage to get the media talking in far less hysterical and much more practical terms about the whole issue of online gambling. Simply put, cash-strapped governments, whether at the state or federal level, are finally waking up to the notion that they can no longer afford to forego any promising revenue stream simply because of some objections scribbled on a set of 2,000-year old scrolls somebody found in a cave somewhere in the Middle East. Read more.
Case in point: don’t mess with taxes, er, Texas. Texans may not have the most progressive attitudes when it comes to what goes into their school textbooks, but when Texans were asked whether they favored dealing with their state’s budget crisis by (a) increased taxation or (b) legalizing casino gambling, a commanding 57% chose to spin that roulette wheel. Let ‘er ride, boys.
