Virginian Seeks To Ban Internet Gambling

The topic of Internet gambling has always been a hot one in the United States, with the online poker fans holding their breath and hoping that one day it isn’t banned all together. If Virginia Representative Republican Bob Goodlatte has its way, it soon will be. The representative has reintroduced a bill that he tried to get through Congress before this week, a bill that would outright outlaw Internet gambling, an industry that some estimates put at a $12 billion value. It’s been a while since his last attempt, which was in 2000, and the online gambling community as grown by leaps and bounds since, lead by the hugely popular activity of playing online poker. Some elements of the proposed bill are already in place in one form or another, such as the banning of credit card use to fund gambling accounts; most major credit card companies have started policing that on their own.