Legislator halts campaign against ATMs in casinos

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, June 29, 2000 | 11:23 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's two-member House delegation is declaring victory after a gambling foe retreated from his push to ban automated teller machines from casino floors.

"I'm pleased to see (Rep. John) LaFalce has thrown in the towel," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. He added, "This battle will arise again."

LaFalce, D-N.Y., had intended Wednesday to introduce his ATM legislation as an amendment to a bill aimed at banning Internet gambling. He has said ATMs should be located away from gaming tables so that gamblers don't quickly withdraw money and spend more than they intended.

But he never made his move during a House banking committee meeting.

LaFalce said that on Wednesday committee chairman Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, told him privately he would not support the ATM language because it was unrelated to the Internet gambling bill.

"I decided that because it was nongermane I was not going to make the argument," LaFalce said in his office after the bill passed without the amendment. But he vowed to continue his fight for the legislation, pushing it as a free-standing bill or as an amendment at a later time. "I still believe in it very strongly."

Gibbons, working well into the night Tuesday, sent letters and talked with members of the committee urging them to vote against the ATM legislation, he said.

Gibbons said modern casino resorts, which include restaurants, shops and hotels, should be able to place ATMs wherever patrons need them.

"For LaFalce to put a ban on ATMs is like saying, 'We're going to send a specific industry back to the stone age,' " Gibbons said.

Nevada's representatives said they were pleased the committee passed the bill on Internet gambling because cyber casinos are difficult to regulate and pose some threat to "brick and mortar" casinos.

"There has to be tight regulation in the gaming industry, which we have in our state, but which does not exist with the off-shore, fly-by-night operations that operate out of the Caribbean," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.

The bill does not ban Internet gambling outright, although another bill approved by the Senate would do that. This bill achieves the same goal by banning use of credit and debit cards, checks and electronic fund transfers for Internet gambling, making it virtually impossible to wager online.

An estimated 700 websites offer online gambling. The issue drew out critics and supporters at Wednesday's committee vote.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said the bill moved in the "opposite direction" of upholding states' rights to regulate their businesses. But Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., lamented that a "total lack of enforcement" allowed gambling sites to flourish unregulated.

Debate also turned to whether citizens had personal freedom to gamble at home.

"What we are now saying is we don't like gambling, we don't think it's nice, and we don't think adults ought to be trusted to take money they have earned and use it on the Internet for gambling," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., mocking the bill.