hhayes

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The House approved a bill Wednesday that attempts to kill Internet gambling by cutting off the flow of money.
The bill, approved on a 317-93 vote, would ban Internet gambling outright, and would target the banks that help funnel the money from American gamblers to the Internet gambling sites, most of which are off shore. Read the text of the bill.
The bill would prohibit banks and credit card companies from processing payments for online bets. It would also prohibit gambling companies from accepting credit card or electronic transfer payments for online gambling.
The bill also extends long-standing prohibitions against placing bets over the public phone system to a blanket ban on gambling over any wired or wireless communications device. The bill has an exception for horse racing.
The fate of the bill in the Senate is uncertain, given the short amount of time left in the session before the lawmakers break for the campaign season.
The bill is the latest effort by lawmakers to control an industry that's grown exponentially in the past few years by taking advantage of the legal loopholes and the inherent difficulty in enforcing U.S. laws on Internet sites located far from the nation's borders.
Supporters of the bill contend that the bill will reduce the estimated $6 billion Americans spent last year on online gambling. "This is a scourge on our society," said Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., a sponsor of the bill.
"These offshore, fly-by-night Internet gambling operators are unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated and are sucking billions of dollars out of the United States," Goodlatte said.
Opponents say the bill would force banks to monitor their customers' behavior, and would burden financial institutions with an impossible mission of tracking down every electronic transfer. "It won't work," said Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va.
The Bush administration backs the bill, but said in an official statement of policy that it had some unspecified "concerns."
The gambling industry is divided over the bill. The online industry trade group, the Interactive Gaming Council, prefers a regulatory approach. The largest online gambling company is U.K.-based PartyGaming