Home » OCW News » March 2010 » Heated Arguments Kill Iowa Online Gambling Expansion

Heated Arguments Kill Iowa Online Gambling Expansion

Date published: 15 March 2010

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Just when it looked like Iowa was poised to become the first state in the U.S. to legalize and regulate online gambling within its borders, those plans seem to have been shelved by the state's lawmakers as a result of the amount of time the discussions took coupled with their heated nature.

According to reports, Iowa lawmakers were on track to introduce 'groundbreaking' online gambling legislation, but after the issue became top lengthy and heated, it took a turn for the worst. It seems that online gambling issues left little time for legislators to address Iowa's other gambling expansion plans.

Although House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was set to propose the poker tournament Bill in the state, which was aimed at allowing large poker tournaments to be hosted at existing Iowa land casinos, that plan too it seems has gone out of the window after McCarthy publically withdrew his support.

Said McCarthy, 'Too much time was squandered on that wayward course. I sent signals several weeks ago that the continued focus by some on online gambling issues would create a situation which would sink the entire gaming ship, and that is what appears to have occurred.'

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He believes there is not enough time left in the session for lawmakers to productively move along the gambling legislation, of which online gambling and poker are just a part. If the proposed online gambling legislation had been passed, gamblers in Iowa would have been allowed to gamble online within state lines.

Under the terms of the proposed legislation, online gamblers would have been required to physically visit land casinos in the state where they could deposit between $50 and $500 into their online gambling accounts. At home they could then login and play at an online casino licensed and regulated within the state.

The inability of Iowa's lawmakers to pass this legislation will not only come as a blow to the thousands of online gamblers in the state - many of whom currently gamble illegally at offshore gambling sites - but will also prevent the state from generating millions of dollars in taxable online gambling revenues.