[Scorpion]

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington

Updated: 1 hour, 34 minutes ago
When Congressman Bob Goodlatte introduced his anti-gaming legislation in February, he sent a letter to his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives with a stark message: This is the bill Jack Abramoff does not want you to sign.

Mr Goodlatte's invocation of Mr Abramoff, the once powerful Republican lobbyist who was engulfed at the time in a wide-ranging lobbying scandal and who has since pled guilty to corruption charges, re-invigorated the criticisms of online gambling, says one Washington lobbyist.

"[The online gaming bill] pretty much stalled through 2005 – and nothing was going on until Jack pled out and admitted to things in respect to 2000," the lobbyist says, referring to Mr Abramoff's successful lobbying campaign against an earlier version of Mr Goodlatte's bill on behalf of eLottery, a client.

Ultimately, lawmakers who wanted to prove their independence from Mr Abramoff's biggest cause in Washington, gambling, paved the way for the passage of the Unlawful Enforcement Gambling Act.

But other forces allowed the bill, which had been passed in the House but which was not expected to gain traction in the Senate, to be attached to an unrelated port security bill and passed hours before lawmakers left Washington to campaign ahead of November's mid-term elections.

At the centre of those efforts was Senate majority leader Bill Frist, who had sought to attach the bill to defence legislation only to be rebuffed by Senator John Warner, chairman of the armed services committee.

Lobbyists who followed the progress of the bill say Dr Frist wanted to attach the bill to legislation guaranteed to pass for a number of reasons, including the fact its passage would sit well with conservative voters ahead of his expected run for president in 2008. Dr Frist may have pushed for the bill, observers say, in the hope it would generate support from fellow lawmaker Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican and critic of online gambling, whose support could be crucial for the Tennessee Republican's presidential bid in the important Iowa primary.

Leading the corporate lobbying effort in support of the bill – and in opposition to the efforts of UK companies such as SportingBet and Partygaming – was the National Football League, which said it wanted to crack down on sports betting because it hurts the integrity and perception of football in America. Public records show the NFL has spent more than $3m on lobbying since 1998. Last year, it paid one Washington company, Covington & Burling, $700,000 to lobby on gambling and other issues. Two of its lobbyists, Martin Gold and Bill Wichterman, are former senior aides to Dr Frist.

While lobbyists hired by Sportingbet and Partygaming believed passage of the bill was a long shot, the US Chamber of Commerce, another powerful lobbying group, argued passage of the legislation would create a regulatory burden on financial institutions that will now be charged with scrutinising transactions to see if they are gambling-related.

But the pleading of the US Chamber was ignored. One day before Saturday's vote on the legislation, two lobbyists who followed the bill alleged the last-minute intervention of the White House, which encouraged Republican senators to support the legislation, gave the bill the momentum it needed to be attached to the port security bill and passed by the Senate.

Both lobbyists contend the White House sought passage of the bill following the release of a bipartisan congressional report that documented contacts between the White House and Mr Abramoff and his partners, including contacts between the lobbyist and Karl Rove, chief political strategist for George W. Bush, president.

"What put it over the top is when the White House, in response to the Abramoff story, said we need this in the ports bill," one of the lobbyist says.

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15211106/

[RickySteve]

Originally Posted by Scorpion

Leading the corporate lobbying effort in support of the bill – and in opposition to the efforts of UK companies such as SportingBet and Partygaming – was the National Football League, which said it wanted to crack down on sports betting because it hurts the integrity and perception of football in America. Public records show the NFL has spent more than $3m on lobbying since 1998. Last year, it paid one Washington company, Covington & Burling, $700,000 to lobby on gambling and other issues. Two of its lobbyists, Martin Gold and Bill Wichterman, are former senior aides to Dr Frist.

The NFL would get lower ratings than the X-Games if gambling didn't exist.

[bigboydan]

Theres no doubt there would be lower rating in the NFL. Which would mean less money for the NFL to demand in there next tv contract.

Betting on football on a sunday is the American way.