September 16, 2009 (CAP Newswire) — The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative has launched a new advertising campaign designed to spur the U.S. Congress to action with the goal to fully legalizing and regulating online gambling in the United States.
There are currently three bills in Congress addressing the issue, two in the House of Representatives (introduced by Barney Frank and Jim McDermott) and one in the Senate (introduced by Robert Menendez).
But progress on all three remains slow, as the U.S. Congress spends its time on admittedly larger issues such as health care and financial reform.
The campaign, formally in support of Frank’s Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2267), attempts to re-catch lawmakers’ attention by addressing the fact that the nation stands to take in a lot of revenue if online gambling were to be taxed.
The U.S. could "collect up to $62.7 billion in new revenues for the federal government in the first decade" of full regulation, the group said in a news release.
"As Congress searches for ways to pay for health care reform and other worthy programs, it should end the unsuccessful prohibition of Internet gambling and start collecting taxes on the billions in revenue currently lost to unlicensed, offshore gambling operators," Jeffrey Sandman, the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative’s spokesperson, said in the release.
Ads for the new ad campaign will appear on mainstream and highly popular political and news sites such as the Washington Post, Politico, and the Huffington Post.