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The AGA Has Clout

The American Gaming Association (AGA) reportedly spent roughly $800,000 in lobbying funds last year, and according to estimates, the association will spend a similarly huge amount on lobbying throughout 2008. The AGA is a trade association specifically for the land gambling industry, but that doesn’t mean that the AGA is anti-online casino gambling. Instead, the AGA has spent the $800,000 in lobbying funds to encourage politicians to pass a bill that would commission a year-long research into the total effects of regulating U.S. and offshore online casinos for the U.S. gambling market.

Groups like the Players Poker Alliance on the other hand have almost matched that amount in lobbying Congress to pass online casino gambling regulation without the year-long delay for a research study. The U.S. has some of the most hypocritical online gambling regulations in the world, and the European Union and Antigua in particular were severely affected by the controversial 2006 UIGEA. The AGA though recognizes that the online casino gambling issue needs to find a resolution, but instead of hastily passing new regulations that may come out as flawed as the UIGEA, the AGA asserts that a federal research study would provide needed insight into the potential within the U.S. internet gambling industry.

The lobbying funds have to be reported at the end of every year according to U.S. laws in place to protect U.S. politics – the entire lobbying process is intended to be transparent, and forcing lobbying groups to disclose how much associations, organizations, and individuals spent in lobbying funds for certain issues is certainly pertinent. Parties affected by the current problems with the U.S. online casino gambling industry are responsible for hundreds of thousands in lobbying funds. The only real resolution to this issue will come when Congress makes a firm choice to either uphold the UIGEA with regulations, or strike down the UIGEA and license and regulate the industry.