REID STRUGGLING TO GET SUPPORT FOR ONLINE POKER LEGALISATION

Tuesday August 7,2012 :  REID STRUGGLING TO GET SUPPORT FOR ONLINE POKER LEGALISATION
 
Only 40 or so fellow Democrats on board, and little interest from Republicans
 
The Las Vegas Sun newspaper published a sobering story this week on the difficulties being experienced by Sen. Harry Reid in progressing his much vaunted online poker legalization bill in the Senate.
 
The bill, yet to be publicly unveiled and said to have been drafted with the collaboration of Sen. Jon Kyl in return for not including online casino gambling, is struggling to gain support, according to an unidentified Democratic Party source.
 
The source told the newspaper that Reid has barely 40 Democrats interested in supporting the bill and needs significantly more Republican backing than he has yet been able to assemble.
 
Some weeks ago Reid called on fellow Nevada Sen. Dean Heller to persuade his fellow Republicans to step forward, but there has been little enthusiasm thus far.
 
In the House of Assembly, where Republican Party Rep. Joe Barton appears to be battling with the same lack of interest on his bill proposing the legalization of online poker, where there has been little advance even beyond committee stage.
 
In a television interview this week Barton virtually admitted that progress was slow, intimating that tribal concerns over the impact of legalised internet poker were the cause, and not opposition from major land gambling companies.