Adelson Calls for Nationwide Ban on Internet Gambling
As states across the nation look to begin to offer legal, regulated online gambling, one of the gaming industry’s most prominent voices, Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson, has written an opinion piece suggesting that no form of Internet gambling ought not to be permitted anywhere in the nation, calling online betting “fool’s gold.”
Adelson wants online gambling to be outlawed nationwide
“As an industry leader, and more importantly as a father, grandfather, citizen and patriot of this great country, I am adamantly opposed to the legalization and proliferation of online casino gaming,” Adelson writes in a piece published on Forbes.com.
Calling for a ban on all forms of online gambling, including online poker, Adelson remarked that permitting this form of wagering is a “societal train wreck waiting to happen.”
Competition is not a motivation, Adelson says
Dispelling any notion that his opposition is rooted in fear of increased competition that would hurt profits at his casinos located in Pennsylvania and Nevada, Adelson asserts that his objection is more rooted in the belief that in permitting online gambling, land-based casinos – including those operated by Native American tribal interests – would experience a loss in revenue.
As proof, Adelson points to the European gambling market, where online gambling is widely available, writing, “The research also shows that over the past ten years internet gambling revenue in Europe has gone up on average 26 to 28 percent. Meanwhile, land-based casino revenue has been flat or even contracted during that same period of time, even though it was expected to increase at five to ten percent per year.”
Adelson remarks that if American casinos suffered the same sort of decline seen in its European counterparts due to what he claims is encroachment by Internet-based gambling companies, the industry would suffer tremendous job loss.
Politics may be a factor
The position that Adelson has so ardently taken up is a relatively new one. In the early 2000’s, Adelson supported efforts in the state of Nevada to regulate online poker, though his tack seemed to change about two years ago, when in 2011 he began to voice public opposition to the introduction of Internet-based wagering in the United States.
Adelson, a high-profile Republican who has donated enormous sums of money to GOP campaigns, may be tackling this issue in this very public – and very firm – manner in part to adhere to what is generally an anti-gambling expansion stance among Republican party stalwarts.
As a man who has built his reputation and fortune in the gambling industry, Adelson clearly is not opposed to the idea of gambling in general. His outcry against online betting has been construed by some as being politically motivated, hence the insistence on Adelson’s part that he is merely concerned with the welfare of society, rather than the bottom line of his own business interests.
