Online betting bill advances in Delaware House

The House Gaming and Parimutuels Committee voted last Thursday to release the bill, despite objections from anti-gambling advocates and complaints from the state's harness racing industry that it would not get its fair share of gambling proceeds.

Officials say the money generated from the expanded gambling would allow them to eliminate the us$ 4 million in slot machine fees paid by the existing casinos and cut their table game fees from us$ 6.75 million to us$ 3 million.

In return for those financial breaks, the casinos would pledge to spend an equal amount on traditional business expenses such as marketing, capital improvements and debt reduction.

"This is key to making sure that this industry stays competitive for the years to come," state finance secretary Tom Cook told the committee, noting that Delaware's gambling industry has faced increased competition from neighboring states in recent years. The administration's presentation to the committee included testimony from industry officials intended to assure lawmakers that online gambling would include proper safeguards to keep minors from betting. "Nobody wants underage gaming activity," said Melissa Blau, an online gambling consultant who has worked with the industry in Europe.

Blau said systems can be set up to monitor every computer keystroke made by someone who goes to an online betting site, and that registration and account information, and the monitoring of betting behavior, can help officials determine whether someone is underage.

Peter Murray, head of gaming and consumer services at GB Group, an identity monitoring and management company based in the United Kingdom, said Social Security numbers and other personal information collected from potential gamblers would help ensure legitimacy of the online betting system.

But Representative Clifford "Biff" Lee told the administration witnesses they had not allayed his concerns about underage gambling. "If you were trying to sell me a new pickup today, you probably wouldn't have sold that vehicle," said Lee, who nevertheless voted to send the bill to the full House.

Lee and other lawmakers also questioned whether the 4.5 percent share that the harness racing industry would receive from online table games such as blackjack is adequate. The horsemen get an equivalent percentage now from casino table games, but those games do not require the use of third-party vendors who would be paid for providing online games.

In addition to the vendor payments, the state would take us$ 3.75 million off the top from online gambling proceeds to recoup the money lost by cutting the casinos' existing table game fees.

Sal DiMario, executive director of the Delaware Standardbred Owners Association, said the bill as currently written is not fair to the harness-racing horsemen. Michael Barlow, Markell's chief counsel, said DiMario has asked for a cut of 12.5 percent from online table games.

Representative John Viola, chief sponsor of the bill, urged administration officials to continue negotiations with the harness racing officials while the legislature takes a two-week break for budget markup. "Online gaming is coming, ... and we need to decide in this building whether we want to be on board with that or not," said Viola.

But opponents of the proposal urged lawmakers to carefully consider the impact of expanding the availability and accessibility of gambling in Delaware. "This legislation is at the first a moral piece of legislation," said Jon Boulet, pastor of Hockessin Baptist Church.

Boulet said the bill was nothing more than a recommendation to "devise and implement a temptation of vice" that would be wielded to extract money from people by taking advantage of their "loneliness, weakness and idleness."