“These bills propose the most aggressive expansion of gambling in American history (and) would inflict an untold number of social costs on American families”

Congressional advocates for legalizing Internet gambling in the United States have made progress in their effort less than two months after rules implementing a 2006 law that cracked down on the practice finally took effect.

The Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives voted 41-22 to forward to the full chamber the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, H.R. 2267.

The bill would have the effect of rescinding the four-year-old Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which largely barred online gambling in the United States by requiring financial institutions to block credit card and other payments to Internet wagering businesses. Long-delayed regulations enforcing the law went into effect June 1.

The new online gambling measure, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, D.-Mass., would both legalize such wagering and authorize the federal government to regulate it.

The committee’s July 28 action came barely a week after Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land and other pro-family leaders wrote congressional leaders to express their opposition to the new bill, as well as a related proposal. The latter measure — the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act, H.R. 4976 — would provide for taxation of gambling revenues in conjunction with Frank’s legislation.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]