Many senators have come out in favor of new legislation to regulate online gambling, but none of those Yay-sayers was senate house majority leader Harry Reid, until now. Only after eking out a reelection victory in November, while an enfeebled but still Democratically run Senate goes through the motions of this lame duck session, has Nevada’s own Harry Reid come out in favor of legalized online gambling.

 

A couple of pieces of online gambling legislation, which encompasses online casinos and online poker among other sites, have been lolling around the House of Representatives for a while waiting for some recognition on the voting floor. Reid, meanwhile, is backing a Senate bill that would repeal the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which prevents online gambling sites from operating legally in the US. 

 

For whatever reason the delay in open support from the man representing the state that gave us Las Vegas, Reid’s support is plenty welcome to online gambling lovers (and businesses) and none too late. Especially because Reid and his colleagues have yet to vote on any of this legislation and legal online poker and casino gambling can use all the support they can get right now. Many are speculating whether Reid’s apparently sudden change of heart comes from making a deal with Las Vegas casinos to back legislation that would give them an opening into the US online gambling market in order to win their support for reelection. The growing masses of online gambling lovers in the US seem just fine with that. Especially when the time clock on anti-UIGEA legislation is ticking down to a standstill in a soon-to-be Republican controlled House.