Online gambling now dead in DC

After over a year of debate dealing with concerns of transparency and safety, legislators in the District of Columbia (DC) officially repealed legislation on Tuesday that had legalised intra-state online gambling for residents.

Despite last-minute efforts by supporters to salvage online gambling for citizens of the nation’s capital, the twelve-member DC Council ratified the Lottery Amendment Repeal Act of 2011 by a vote of ten to two thus overturning an earlier amendment to its Fiscal Year 2011 Supplemental Budget Support Act that had legalised iGaming including poker.

“I want to make sure we get the best deal for the city,” Jack Evans, a member of the DC Council and a sponsor of the Lottery Amendment Repeal Act of 2011, told the Washington Post newspaper.

“I believe it should be set up so the city gets the best price and the best revenue.”

However, Council member Michael Brown, a supporter of intra-state online gambling, said that the decision will mean the loss of tens of millions of dollars in revenues and the criminalisation of residents who go online to gamble.

“It’s the residents who lose including residents who play every day now and will be left unprotected,” said Brown.

Last week saw the municipality’s Finance and Revenue Committee pass the language in the Lottery Amendment Repeal Act of 2011 by a vote of three to two and set up Tuesday’s vote in front of the full body.

Operator DC Lottery had been working on an implementation process for the planned online gaming system and originally intended to use DC-Net, 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 projected teaming up with Greek supplier Intralot in order to launch play-for-fun and later real-money games at iGamingDC.com.

However, DC Lottery soon ran into trouble following delays that included the operator being forced to hold a city-wide consultation process and drop DC-Net as the preferred method of delivery in addition to questions over the transparency of the contract award to Intralot.

“We just need to start over,” Evans told The Associated Press news service last week.