Reid-Kyl Bill Splits Trade Organizations in Opinion

The much-debated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's online poker bill holds undivided attention of numerous trade organizations, although not all of them agree with its content. Namely, the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) is at odds with the bill because it bans all forms of online gambling except for poker. And because it wants to see the bill go down, the organization is sending a delegation of six high-profile state lottery officials to Washington where they lobby against the proposed legislation with the legislators. Another strong opponent of the bill is the Kentucky Lottery Corporation, whose President and CEO Arch Gleason personally lobbied against it in a letter recently sent to lawmakers. In his opinion, “it's the first time that we have come as a group. There is a sense of urgency. If this attached to legislation, this can have a negative impact on state lotteries and how their funds are raised for public benefit.” Gleason also added that the bill “unfairly limits the states' rights to determine their own destiny. The states stand to lose a fair bit of money if they decided to opt in because of the restrictions in the bill.” However, there are others, who support the bill, such as the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) which is actively trying to rally support for the bill in order to protect the retail sector business. Its senior vice president of government relations, Lyle Beckwith, explained: “The lotteries have tried to come to us on numerous occasions saying that this wouldn't hurt us. They just want to expand their base of customers to people who don't play these games already. From our perspective, this could hurt our business.” Such a stand could be expected from convenience stores, as they will remain the primary retailer of scratch-off games thanks to a ban on instant-win games online. Namely, the stores believe that if given the chance to gamble online, customers will do so, and thereby negatively affect their business. “They just don't buy lottery tickets when they're in a store. They buy a cup of coffee. They fill up their tank. I would prefer that they ban everything but this bill is far, far better than nothing being banned. If Reid's bill doesn't pass, the lotteries will try to put a casino in everyone's living room,” Beckwith said. Such NACS stand is similar to that of the American Gaming Association which also supports the bill and whole president and chief executive officer Frank Fahrenkopf described the NACS as “very active, very knowledgeable and very smart.”