Gambling News - May 2005 Edition

"Texas Excludes Online Gambling Measure from Budget Plan"

State governments eyeing online gambling as a source of tax income - if only it were legal!

The rocketing growth of the Internet gambling industry and the great revenue generating potential it promises has caught the eye of a few state governments. Now some state legislatures are trying to legalize Internet gambling and turn it into a legitimate activity.

One of these states is Texas. Experts calculate online gambling could bring an additional $275 million in state revenues to the state of Texas, a not insignificant sum of money. In light of this, lawmakers in the state recently attempted to pass a proposal for state-sponsored online gambling. In the end, though, the proposal was not included in the state budget plan in spite of the tremendous revenue generating potential of the online gambling industry. The lottery resolution was one of a parcel of 46 proposals up for consideration as part of the state budget plan.

It seems that members of the Texas House Appropriations Committee didn’t feel the extra revenue was necessary after the committee chairman was quoted as saying that the current budget plan will nevertheless contribute an additional one billion dollars.

Had the Internet gambling measure been adopted, it would have legalized the use of ATM cards, debit cards, or the maintaining of a tab with the Texas Lottery Commission in order to play the lottery.

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