Online Gambling Could Generate $42 billion

Sissy · **Posted:** Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:58 am

http://gamingintelligencegroup.com/gig/ ... iew/777/2/

Quote:

Online Gambling Could Generate $42 billion Tax Revenue US Congress Told
01 February 2008
A new tax revenue analysis announced by US House Representative Jim McDermott estimates that regulating Internet gambling would generate between $8.7 billion to $42.8 billion in federal revenues over its first ten years. The findings of the analysis, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, were provided to all Members of Congress by McDermott this week.

"Before us is a tremendous opportunity to protect consumers and recoup billions of dollars that should be collected by the Internal Revenue Service," said Representative McDermott. "These are revenues that are desperately needed, given that we are at war and face difficulty financing the nation's priorities."

Representative McDermott introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act (H.R. 2607), which would tax regulated Internet gambling.

"To be clear, these are not mostly new taxes -- the bulk of the revenues generated would come from taxes required under existing law," said McDermott. "This is simply a framework to collect taxes on existing activity that is currently unregulated, unsupervised, and underground."

The current approach, prohibiting Internet gambling through the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), has proved to be a failure. Notwithstanding the UIGEA prohibition, millions of Americans are still able to gamble online. In addition, proposed rules by the Treasury Department to implement the current prohibitions have been severely criticized by many parties, including the American Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association, Financial Services Roundtable, and other leading financial services companies and groups.

"Instead of this ineffective attempt to prevent adults from gambling over the Internet, we need a more sensible approach to protect consumers and ensure that revenues that now flow offshore stay here in the U.S. and are therefore subject to taxation," added McDermott. "A new, safer, more sensible approach is needed to regulate Internet gambling and protect consumers."

McDermott's legislation functions as a companion bill to the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2046), legislation introduced by Representative Barney Frank which would establish a licensing and enforcement framework for regulated Internet gambling in the U.S. The legislation would allow States to retain full control over the regulation of Internet gambling within their borders, applying additional taxes, protections and limitations as determined necessary and appropriate.

gypsy65 · **Posted:** Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:39 pm

I'm probably going to open a can of worms here but here goes...
It is an election year as we all know and our good buddy Barney Frank and most of the democrats are standing behind these bills of regulating online gambling...I know Barney Frank is endorsing Hilary Clinton...as far as the other dems I don't know..but we have to come to understand that the republicans are VERY against online gambling in the USA and are even willing to dish out millions (if not billions by the time it's over) to cover up the mistakes they have made by making it illegal for US players..So when we all head to the poles to vote PLEASE consider this fact when making our decisions!!!

As always when I post here...this are my comments and my thoughts alone!!!!

stressmom · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:59 am **Posts:** 212

If online gambling and other forms of gambling could generate that much revenue, then why not make it legal, regulate it, protect the players and reap the benefits all the way around? That way everyone wins. What could possibly be wrong with that?

amyhop · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:01 pm **Posts:** 205

Nothing wrong with that except that there are so many right wingers out there who would lose constituents (they think) if they were to champion a cause like this. And they are so much for de regulation they just don't want to have to get their hands dirty over this fight. But I agree- this could be a mega income generator and really it is hurting no one.

NAVYMANS-MOM · **Joined:** Fri May 25, 2007 9:29 am **Posts:** 694

Actually it was the LEFT wingers....the party that has always believed government knows best and manipulate it so they have control of the people. This law came about almost immediately after the Dems got control of both the House and the Senate during Bush's Admin and they began pushing their agendas of control thru. The only extreme left Dem that wanted to repeal and reverse this law was Barney Frank and he couldn't get enough support from his own side to do anything about it....Hopefully, if the Conservatives (Repubs AND Dems) can get control again, this can finally be addressed because Conservatives strongly believe in INDIVIDUAL rights and not COLLECTIVE rights and they believe in fiscal responsibility, they can be convinced to turn this law around because they will be able to see that First, it's our right to have control over our own money and Two, it will bring in massive amounts of very fast revenue that can be used to pay down the debt. (Most people don't realize that (even tho I liked him alot) that Bush was also a Progressive so when it came to something like this, he also believed it was government's role to 'protect' us from ourselves but even if he didn't believe that, he didn't have control of the House and Senate to stop it, except thru a Veto, and at that time, he had two wars going on and didn't see the money forest that could have helped pay for them for the trees that the Dems were burning down.

SpunkyPepper · **Joined:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:20 pm **Posts:** 138

Yup it definitely happened during the "Bush" administration and the stupidity of it all is that up until now it hadn't even been enforced. During all that time they could have changed things and started collecting income tax and protecting the American citizens but oh no that would make too much sense for any government to do.

Sissy · **Posted:** Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:37 pm

Spunky pepper, how would you handle this if you were the US govt?

PokerPrincess · **Joined:** Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:00 pm **Posts:** 338

I know you asked SpunkyPepper how to do it, but since he/she hasn't replied yet I would like to take a shot at it. If the governments can track the banks and credit card companies to fine people for playing online then why can't they do the same thing to track it for income tax purposes. That would mean the player would have to submit their gambling habits and how much they wager and how much they win or lose. That way taxes could be paid to the government through the bank records and/or credit card records.

As far as protecting the players, that would be a little bit more difficult in that they would have to have a special department looking after complaints with these online gambling sites. That could be the part they are not ready to do yet but I'm sure that it could be done and that the U.S. clout with an Argentina or foreign agency could be done with a heavy hand. IMHO.

Online Gambling Could Generate $42 billion

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