From Las Vegas Sun – The case for federal online poker legislation was once about adults’ freedom to spend their money as they like and states’ need for an extra source of revenue.

When that fell flat, online poker advocates regrouped and began calling for federal legislation as a way to combat gambling addiction and abuses, especially among children and senior citizens.

But Wednesday morning, a panel of experts Sen. Dean Heller gathered before the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection argued that the chief reasons to pass federal internet gambling legislation were a need to stop money laundering and stymie terrorists.

“There are indications that terrorists in Afghanistan have been using online gaming to launder their funds,” said Chuck Canterbury, national director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “There is no legal or regulatory framework for law enforcement to shut down this activity.”

The hearing on the expansion of online gambling — the first official action on the subject in the Senate this year — was called to hear from experts about the best ways to rein in the current “free for all,” as Heller put it, of online gambling access and regulation across the country.

The assembled senators and panel of experts had high praise for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the 2006 law that rendered interstate banking transactions to process gaming payments and wagers illegal. They also had significant criticism for the December 2011 reading of the 1961 Wire Act that allowed states to legalize online gaming transactions within their own states.