Card Player – Billionaire casino boss Sheldon Adelson is keeping his foot on the pedal in his desperate quest to squash online poker in the United States.
The owner of Las Vegas Sands Corp. reportedly just commissioned a study of four states in order to show that legalizing online gambling, including poker, is currently not too popular among voters.
According to Ralston Reports, the Tarrance Group, a well regarded national firm, recently completed a series of polls for the Las Vegas Sands chairman.
Surveys were conducted in California, Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and “found overwhelming opposition to web poker.” The average distaste for casino games on the web between the four was a whopping 66 percent, with a margin of error of about four percent.
It’s unclear why those states were chosen, but the study said that they are “pro-gaming” states.
California is considered to be the most important state to have on board in an U.S. web poker market. It has 37 million people, tops in the country. However, the fact that voters are not found of online poker is not really the reason why efforts at legalization have failed there. Tribal groups, commercial interests and lawmakers have had an impossible time coming to a consensus.
Adelson has been challenging the online gambling industry because he said he is morally opposed to the idea of such games potentially being played in every household in America. Adelson is a staunch Republican, giving tens of millions to candidates he likes.
No one knows if that’s the complete picture of why he hates the idea of web gambling in the country. His casino company might just not be ready to venture into the space like some of his competitors are. That makes sense, since Las Vegas Sands has been doing very well from its brick-and-mortar business, most notably in Macau. Online gambling in the U.S. is a different animal, one that Sands might not be ready to conquer, and thus Adelson wants everything to slow down a bit so his firm has more time. It has not applied for an online gambling license in Nevada.
