This Week in Gambling: It will not be a very Merry Christmas for billionaire hypocrite Sheldon Adelson. He has literally spent millions of dollars in an effort to promote his Restoration of Americas Wire Act (RAWA), his self-serving agenda to ban online gambling thinly disguised as legislation.

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) is now reporting that the U.S.Senate has passed their final bill of 2016 without any RAWA verbiage included. The bill was a government spending bill, which will fund operations well into next year. The House of Representatives passed this bill earlier, also without the inclusion of RAWA, and is adjourned for the year.

Online gambling supporters had been concerned that this bill would be a prime target for Adelson, perhaps by attaching language to ban Internet gambling, similar to the way the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was surreptitiously approved in 2006.

Rich Muny, Vice President of Player Relations for the PPA, stated via social media that “The Senate just passed a bill funding the government into next year. It does not contain RAWA. This is their final bill for the year and they will adjourn.”

All bills seeking to ban online gambling in the Senate and the House are now dead and will need to be reintroduced in 2017.