Gaming lobby entering debate on Obama’s pick for attorney general

By Amber Phillips

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015 | 7:30 a.m.

Seeking a federal crackdown on illegal gambling, the gaming industry’s leading Capitol Hill lobby is wading into the debate over President Obama’s pick to be America’s top law enforcement officer.

The American Gaming Association has made it a high priority to protect the growing gaming industry against illegal gambling in 2015, and its leaders see the attorney general debate as one of the earliest and best vehicles to do that.

Obama nominated New York federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to replace longtime Attorney General Eric Holder, who is stepping down. The Senate Judiciary Committee will start hearings for Lynch's confirmation on Wednesday, and her prospects for confirmation aren't clear in a Republican-controlled Senate.

"We urge you to ensure the next attorney general takes seriously the problem of illegal gambling across the country," AGA's president Geoff Freeman wrote in a letter sent today to Senate Judiciary Committee members.

But on sports wagering, which is allowed in Nevada and has been legalized to a limited extent in some other states, the AGA’s stance isn’t black-and-white.

After NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called for legalizing sports betting across the U.S., the AGA is talking to its members about whether it should press for expanding sports betting or push for stronger enforcement.

In response to Silver, the AGA said it was studying just how big of a problem the illegal sports betting market was and what the association should do about it.

"We're not advocating for any legislation [yet]," said AGA's spokesperson, Chris Moyer, "but we are pointing out the fact that this is a huge market, and the current law is failing."

The association has taken every opportunity in recent weeks to highlight its concerns about the status quo of illegal sports betting. Last week, the AGA made its first ever predictions on how many people would illegally wager bets on the Super Bowl — and how much Nevada bookies will lose out.

Off-the-books sports betting ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl could total $3.8 billion in illegal wagers compared to Nevada's legal $100 million, the AGA predicted.

Predicting illegal Super Bowl bets and diving into Senate attorney general hearings is part of a revved up outreach strategy for the AGA, which launched an aggressive campaign in May to change negative perceptions about gaming's societal impact.

AGA wants to get ahead of the growing number of lawmakers and regulators hosting casinos in their communities. Forty states have casinos, and all but two states have some form of legalizing gaming.

But the association is staying out of on one of the industry's most high-profile debates: Whether to ban online gaming.

Below is a letter from the AGA to the Committee on the Judiciary.