News Legalized sports betting and gambling could boost Obama’s coffers
Legalized sports betting and gambling could boost Obama’s coffers |
| Written by Betting Editor | |||
| Friday, 27 February 2009 07:15 | |||
 Whilst there is a huge furore in the UK over unfair double taxation of Bingo halls and calls to reduce the taxation of this form of gambling, and talk of the damage to the bingo industry and local communities if taxation is not controlled. Over the pond there is also talk of taxation on gambling, but from an entirely different perspective. In the States there are renewed calls for the lifting of the three year ban on legalized online sports betting and gambling to increase the federal revenues that legalized online sports betting and gambling would once again generate.
The 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act has caused major problems for the European online sports betting and gambling industry in lost revenues as well as wiping millions off share values overnight. There have also been some very aggressive prosecutions of European online sports betting and gambling operators, whilst U.S. companies have not suffered any legal ramifications. One such case was the prosecution of the founder of Party Gaming Anurag Dikshit who pleaded guilty and received a scorching $300m fine. It has been estimated by world renowned accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers that legalization of online sports betting alone would generate in excess of $30 billion, and should online poker and casino gambling be legalized this figure could rise to $52 billion over the next decade. Congressman Jim McDermott made the following testimony to the House Committee on the Judiciary “Even under the most conservative estimates, licensing and regulating Internet gambling – and collecting the taxes that are due – will provide much-needed revenue to the U.S. Treasury. This is money we are currently losing to other jurisdictions, for no other reason than some of my colleagues think we can actually stop people from gambling online. It is money we will continue to lose if we ignore the fact that if grown adults in America want to gamble online, they can and they will.” Without doubt the American Government could do with some increased revenue without the need for taxing the individual, the legalization of online gambling by the Obama Administration would see a much needed injection of revenue.
|