Murren’s comments came via an interview with News3LV in Las Vegas, in which he touched on a number of subjects. At the end, the interviewer broached the subject of online gambling; Murren spent more than four minutes talking about the issue, sometimes passionately.

Loosely referencing the Sheldon Adelson-backed effort to ban online gambling at the federal level — the Restoration of America’s Wire Act — Murren once again dismissed the idea that prohibition is an effective way to deal with the issue:

“People are gambling illegally online — Americans — right now,” Murren said. “We don’t know how old they are, we don’t if they can afford to do it, we don’t know where they are. We don’t know if they are actually going to get paid if they win something. We don’t know anything. And to think we can just ban this and that the problem goes away is ridiculous, it flies in the face of common sense. So what I think we should do is regulate it, bring it out in the open.

This isn’t the first time Murren has addressed the issue, but he seemed to advance his position to more actively calling for regulation.

“All banning will do is put this further underground and not solve the problem,” Murren offered. “And that’s why I am an advocate of legalizing, regulating, taxing and holding companies accountable to outcomes, just as we are in the brick-and-mortar business.”

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