District's Finance and Revenue Committee votes 3 to 2 to repeal 2010 online gaming law with a full council vote expected next week.
Thursday 2nd February 2012
After becoming the first jurisdiction in the United States to legalise online gambling within its borders, the District of Columbia (DC) looks poised to repeal the programme even before it has taken its first wager.
The District's Finance and Revenue yesterday voted 3 to 2 to repeal a 2010 law that would have allowed online gambling. The full 12-member council will now vote on repealing the measure, possibly as early as next Tuesday. According to the Washington Post, nine of the twelve councl members are inclined to vote for repeal.
Operator DC Lottery had been working on an implementation process for the planned online gaming system ever since the 13-member City Council for the District of Columbia passed an amendment to its Fiscal Year 2011 Supplemental Budget Support Act in December of 2010 that incorporated language legalising iGaming including poker for residents of the municipality.
DC Lottery had initially planned to use DC-Net, which is a high-speed fibre-optic network that carries data, voice, video and wireless telecommunications for government and public safety purposes, as a way to keep play legal and within city borders and ensure a secure connection for games. The operator had also intended to team up with Greek supplier Intralot in order to launch play-for-fun games from July of 2010 followed by real-money games two months later at iGamingDC.com.
However, following delays that included DC Lottery holding a city-wide consultation process and dropping DC-Net as the preferred method of delivery in addition to questions over whether the awarding of the contract to Intralot was ethical, Council member Jack Evans introduced the measure via the Finance and Revenue Committee to repeal the planned iGaming programme.
According to a report from The Associated Press news service, the Democrat will also vote to repeal the programme when it goes before the full Council while stating that his proposal ‘has the support of a majority of Council members’.
“We just need to start over,” said Evans, while adding that he was ‘troubled’ by a report from the Inspector General that raised questions about changes to the District’s contract with its lottery vendor that paved the way for online gambling.
Council member Michael Brown has warned that offering online games at a later date may mean the District will no longer experience the ‘revenue bonanza’ it could get by becoming the first jurisdiction to offer iGaming.
“Most of the folks that are supporting the repeal are okay with ‘online gambling’, they just want to start the process all over, which I find curious,” said Brown.
