This Is One GAME Congress Should Play… and Pass

The Daily Caller covers the GAME Act.

With Congress hurtling toward a debt ceiling increase this summer and another budget showdown in the Fall, their legislative agenda will be limited in 2017. Despite the (now normal) chaos, the Gaming Accountability and Modernization Enhancement (GAME) Act should move forward. The GAME Act puts the power of legalization and regulation of gambling in the hands of states where it belongs. With such a dysfunctional Congress and President, every opportunity to give states more autonomy should be encouraged.

Introduced as a discussion draft by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the GAME Act would repeal any federal prohibitions on gambling and allow each state to decide whether to allow wagers of chance within their borders. This applies to all forms of gambling, from casinos to poker, sports bets to daily fantasy, lotteries to horse racing.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute notes the bill does have a possible Achilles heel in how it defines fantasy sports as gambling, a designation that industry has resisted. In fact, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006, which severely curtailed the booming online poker industry, specifically exempted daily fantasy sports from its clutches. (Poker should also be treated with the same non-gambling designation since better players win out in the long run, as with daily fantasy sports, but that’s a different argument.)

Designating daily fantasy sports as gambling could yield opposition to the GAME Act from professional sports leagues who formed partnerships with companies like DraftKings and FanDuel, but have an aversion to being associated with gambling, CEI said.

“If Rep. Pallone and GAME Act supporters want to give the bill its best chance of passage, they ought to strike all the language related to fantasy sports,” wrote Michelle Minton of CEI.

Read the full article at The Daily Caller.