Sheldon Adelson is the CEO of the Sands Casino and a strong opponent of online poker.
Adelson has been against the legalization of online poker from the start saying that he is morally opposed to the idea of online poker as once it is available throughout the nation, a number of minors can start playing the game.
Adelson is a republican and gives large donations to candidates in legislation to finance their campaigns; hence his opinion does carry a lot of weight.
Adelson who prefers to keep poker in the casinos, recently went ahead and commissioned The Tarrance Group was commission to conduct a survey on voter’s attitudes toward Internet gambling. The Tarrance Group is a Republican strategic research and polling firm. Based on the research carried out, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia and California were surveyed. Dave Sackett who works at Tarrance reported that based on the survey results, it is clear that voters
shows a universal opposition to any proposal that would legalize Internet gambling or internet poker.
The company released a memorandum which states that
These key findings are based on telephone interviews with a total of N=2,216 ‘likely’ registered voters throughout these four states. Responses to this survey were gathered during the period between June-October, 2013. The margin of error associated with the sample for each of these studies is + 4.3% in 95 out of 100 cases.
Some of the key highlights brought out in the report state that a majority of voters in both Pennsylvania and California favor their state expanding gambling as a way to generate additional revenue for the state to help deal with budget issues; voters in all four states are largely “pro-gaming.” Sixty percent (60%) of voters in these four states approve of their state allowing gaming as a way to generate revenue for the state, and only thirty-five percent (35%) are opposed and the data from the surveys in Kentucky and Virginia found strong support for the current ban on internet gambling, with almost 60% indicating that they favour the current ban on internet gambling.
Adelson will likely use the results of this survey with key decision makers to strengthen his case against online poker. Adelson has gone on record to state that he thinks online poker is a cancer and a plague waiting to happen morally. Even if Adelson does not manage in banning online poker, his efforts could very well slow down the process of launching online poker across all the states in the country.
