Senator Harry Reid Continues to Support RAWA

It appears that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nev.) is not content to just let Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO and deep-pocketed Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson fight the war against online poker in the United States by himself. It is increasingly looking like Reid may, in fact, help him out. On  his way to retirement, the former online poker champion has done a complete 180 and is now firmly against online gambling.

Earlier this spring, Reid told Nevada Public Radio, KNPR, that after years of fighting for online poker, he is now siding with his good friend Adelson and supporting Adelson’s Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA), a bill that aims to make online gambling completely illegal in the United States, with the usual exceptions of horse racing and fantasy sports. In the interview, Reid said:

I believe that online gaming is not good for our country. I’ve said that. And Lindsey Graham is a sponsor of that legislation. He’s from South Carolina and I have not stood in his way at all. I talked to him last night, as an example. He said he believes it should start in the House – I agree with him – and if it passes the House, we’re going to give it a good, hard try in the Senate to get it done.

He even wants it gone from his home state of Nevada, a state which he is supposed to represent on Capitol Hill. Online poker is the only form of internet gambling legal in the Silver State and while it has not been a resounding success, neither has it been a problem. Geolocation, identity, and age verification services have all worked quite well and effective regulations have seemed to prevent any major problems in the two years that online poker has been live within state borders.

But in that KNPR interview, Reid did not seem to understand this, saying, “I’m a guy for strong controls and I think it’s not being controlled very well, especially in Indian country.”

So instead of working with Native American tribes to institute strong controls, he wants to just abandon them completely. Makes sense.

Now, Reid is continuing to express his desire to not only stay out of Adelson’s way when it comes to outlawing internet gambling, but to help him get it done. The Las Vegas Sun reports that in a Monday interview, Reid once again called for an all-out ban on internet gambling, saying, “Unless we can get something done with poker, I’m going to look closely — I haven’t made up my mind — but I’m going to look closely into banning it totally,” Reid said. “I’m going to take a hard look at it. It would be something I would certainly consider strongly.”

So, yes, he is still willing to save poker, but he is also increasingly willing to just be done with it, stop trying, and just throw the baby out with the bath water. It really sounds like he has been against online poker all along, but was just trying to put on a reasonable façade for his constituents. Now that he is on his way out, he can more freely buddy-up with his pal Adelson. While they have historically differed politically, Reid will almost certainly call in some monetary favors later now that he is on team RAWA.