The American horse racing industry has paid more than $3 million in political donations, to ensure that it will be exempt from the recent law against online gambling that was approved by the Senate last week.
The industry employed a sophisticated lobbying campaign that was targeted at specific Congressmen. This has angered executives from the online gambling companies whose shares have collapsed in the last week.
Americans gambled $6 billion last year in online casino and poker sites, but the surprising legislation makes it illegal for financial institutions to process payments to and from gambling websites.
President of the Poker Players Alliance, Michael Bolcerek, has been trying to raise money from online gamblers to fund a lobbying campaign in Washington, similar to how the American horse racing industry pursued the matter.
Offshore gambling companies, such as PartyGaming and others listed in the London stock exchange, have employed Capitol Hill lobbyists for the past several years, but have failed to block the tide of anti-gambling approach of the mostly Republican Senate.
For the past six years, the horse racing industry made contributions of $3.02 million. Most of that money went to Republican candidates. Bob Goodlatte, the member of the House of Representatives whose prohibition bill in February gave the campaign to ban internet gambling its successful momentum, is one of the four members of the House of Representatives to have received the most campaign contributions.
Washington lobbyists are optimistic regarding the future. They say that the online gambling industry will no doubt learn from experience and this setback and will issue a new campaign which will push the Congress towards clarifying the law regarding online gambling and regulating the whole industry.
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