Adelsons Revamps His US-Wide Anti-Online Poker Lobbying Efforts

If you’re an American who likes to play poker online, chances are you’re not a big fan of billionaire gaming & resorts tycoon, and anti-online gaming campaigner Sheldon Adelson.

You have to give the Las Vegas and Marina Bay Sands owner one thing though – He does not have any desire to give up pursuing the things he believes in.

The 81-year-old businessman has ramped up his campaign to ban online poker and gaming in the US by taking on former influential US politicians to help him lobby for an online gaming ban.

Former US Senators Trent Lott and John Breaux have apparently accepted Mr Adelson’s offers for their hands in his anti-online gaming and poker crusade. Both of these figures give Mr Adelson considerable ammunition in his fight to outlaw online gaming given their previous standings in US politics.

Mr Lott, who represented Mississippi in the US Senate between 1989 and 2007, was once the Senate Majority Leader, a prestigious post in US politics. Mr Breaux, on the other hand, was directly involved in US Politics for over four decades, firstly as a member of the US House of Representatives between 1972 and 1987 and then as a US Senator between 1987 and 2005.

The 70-year-old can also be seen as being considerable ammunition for Adelson’s lobbying efforts as Breaux was a representative of the Democratic Party.

Mr Adelson is a notable supporter of the Republican Party, and the overwhelming majority of current US politicians who have supported Adelson in his push to ban online gaming are Republican Party members.

This can be seen by looking at the politicians who have openly shown their support to the latest bill in the US Senate to ban online poker and gaming, which was introduced last month. Of the six co-sponsors of the bill, five are Republican Party members, as is the bill’s producer, Senator Lindsey Graham.

Mr Adelson has certainly given his desires to ban online gaming in the US more steam by taking on Mr Lott and Mr Breaux to lobby for a ban. However, despite that, it is unlikely that a total ban on online gaming and poker in the US will be seen anytime soon as the US fast approaches an election due next year.

What is also just as unlikely, though, is that Mr Adelson will give up on his push to see a federal online gaming ban anytime soon.