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View Full Version : Sheldon Adelson Says He Is 'Willing To Spend Whatever It Takes' To Stop Online Gambling




CaseyJones
11-22-2013, 02:24 PM
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/11/22/sheldon-adelson-says-he-is-willing-to-spend-whatever-it-takes-to-stop-online-gambling/


Sheldon Adelson, the nation’s 11th richest person and chief executive of casino company Las Vegas Sands , says he is determined to stop online gambling in America and he will go to great lengths to battle the corporate interests pushing for it. “I am willing to spend whatever it takes,” Adelson said in his first interview since The Washington Post revealed that he had hired an army of lawyers and lobbyists to try to convince Congress to ban online gambling. “My moral standard compels me to speak out on this issue because I am the largest company by far in the industry and I am willing to speak out. I don’t see any compelling reason for the government to allow people to gamble on the Internet and nobody has ever explained except for the two companies whose special interest is going to be served if there is gaming on the Internet, Caesars and MGM.”

Adelson’s effort to launch an advocacy group, the Coalition To Stop Internet Gambling, has shocked a casino industry that has been gearing up for a big push into online gambling in states like New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada—and maybe beyond. One of the nation’s top political donors, Adelson first openly declared his opposition to online gambling in a June article he wrote for Forbes, in which he claimed online gambling would cause people to lose their homes. He spent enormous amounts of money on the 2012 presidential election and is now preparing to use his financial firepower to push a legislative agenda connected to his business like never before. While Adelson is closely identified with Republican Party politics, his campaign against online gambling is a bipartisan effort, headed by former Republican governor George Pataki, together with Democrats Blanche Lincoln, the former Arkansas senator, and Wellington Webb, the former mayor of Denver. “I won’t go into the business because it’s a moral issue for me,” says Adelson about online gambling. “If a stockholder said to me ‘your morality can’t count when it comes to making money for shareholders,’ I see it from a business view point as very harmful to all the companies that go into it.”

The way Adelson sees it, Internet gambling will hurt young and economically vulnerable Americans, including those who will view it as a potential way to get out from under a mountain of student debt. He claims that there is no efficient technological way to stop minors or those suffering from alcohol or other substance abuse problems from gambling online, but that land-based casinos can prevent issues like money-laundering and stop people who should not be gambling from engaging in it. Adelson says online gambling advocates are “hypocrites” because they claim that a tightly regulated online gambling industry can prevent people who should not be gambling from betting money online, yet at the same time it has proven impossible to stop offshore online gambling sites in a timely manner from operating U.S. facing web sites or criminals from operating web sites involved in all sorts of illegal activity. “It’s the height of hypocrisy,” says Adelson. “On one hand, high tech is not strong enough to stop bad people or bad things, but on the other hand, if you say it’s a regulation the high tech is strong enough.”

RM918
11-22-2013, 02:28 PM
More rich assholes using the government to take out their competition. Morals my ass, the only reason why gambling is widely illegal is in order to keep all the money in the current locations. Cities don't want to give up their cash cow.

angelatc
11-22-2013, 03:03 PM
My moral standard compels me to speak out on this issue because I am the largest company by far in the industry and I am willing to speak out.

Uhm, wot?

dannno
11-22-2013, 03:07 PM
Wow, I wonder if he really believes what he is saying..

HOLLYWOOD
11-22-2013, 05:21 PM
here... fixed the title for yah:
Sheldon Adelson Says He's 'Willing To Bribe/Extort Every Politician In America" To Keep The Money Flowing To His Casinos.

enhanced_deficit
11-23-2013, 01:56 AM
Although he is a *******, he is very good at media campaigns.

Adelson organization sets out to save Israel with photo of Natalie Portman circa 1995 (http://mondoweiss.net/2013/11/organization-natalie-portman.html)

Philip Weiss (http://mondoweiss.net/author/philweiss) on November 22, 2013 9 (http://mondoweiss.net/2013/11/organization-natalie-portman.html#comments)


http://f8wee1vvia32pdxo527grujy61.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Natalie-Portman-378x580.png (http://f8wee1vvia32pdxo527grujy61.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Natalie-Portman.png)

Carson
11-23-2013, 02:25 AM
"Sheldon Adelson Says He Is 'Willing To Spend Whatever It Takes' To Stop Online Gambling"

Sounds like quite a gamble.

I wonder if he has thought this cunning plan all the way through? Just tripping on the concept makes my head explode.

ObiRandKenobi
11-23-2013, 12:40 PM
adelson is like the biggest asshole

Kotin
11-23-2013, 12:47 PM
I don’t see any compelling reason for the government to allow people....

First of all, fuck you..

second of all.. "chief executive of casino company Las Vegas Sands"... are you fucking kidding me?? the fact that I have to point out a blaring conflict on interest here is a joke..

ALL YOU WANT IS TO HAVE A MONOPOLY AND YOU WANT GOVERNMENT TO GIVE IT TO YOU AND PROTECT IT... fuck.. what is this shit?

how can he even think people wont see right through that moral bullshit.. great example of people hiding behind that sort of shit to get more money.. oh my god this guy should drop fucking dead.

ctiger2
11-23-2013, 01:23 PM
Fascism at it's finest.

Why on earth is any gambling illegal at all. Ridiculous in a "free society". Makes sense in an authoritarian dictatorship though.

twomp
11-23-2013, 03:15 PM
lol I hope Mr. Adelson spends every last penny on this endeavor. Rich people think they can just throw money around and fix everything. Just ask the movie/music industry how well their fight against online pirating is going. When people fight the internet, they usually lose.

libertarianMoney
11-23-2013, 03:58 PM
Oops. Mistake post. Sorry.

libertarianMoney
11-23-2013, 03:59 PM
lol I hope Mr. Adelson spends every last penny on this endeavor. Rich people think they can just throw money around and fix everything. Just ask the movie/music industry how well their fight against online pirating is going. When people fight the internet, they usually lose.

Amazing Response.

I was all depressed until I read this.
Thank you!

Tod
11-23-2013, 04:21 PM
Amazing Response.

I was all depressed until I read this.
Thank you!

ah, but what he'll do is spend a LITTLE of his own money, get some laws passed, and then from there on out the fine compliant taxpayers will be funding Sheldon's War On Online Gambling.

RJB
11-23-2013, 04:22 PM
lol I hope Mr. Adelson spends every last penny on this endeavor. Rich people think they can just throw money around and fix everything.

It won't be your money. It'll be the your money (taxes) that they'll spend.

ETA Looks like Tod just beat me to the punch :)

Lafayette
11-23-2013, 06:13 PM
If Mr. 11th richest person in the country is willing to spend every penny he has to stop online gambling, because "people will lose their homes"... why doesn't he just buy them new homes?

gwax23
11-23-2013, 06:24 PM
Whata Schmuck

Cleaner44
11-23-2013, 06:36 PM
Sheldon Adelson, the nation’s 11th richest person and chief executive of casino company Las Vegas Sands , says he is determined to stop online gambling in America and he will go to great lengths to battle the corporate interests pushing for it. “I am willing to spend whatever it takes,” Adelson said in his first interview since The Washington Post revealed that he had hired an army of lawyers and lobbyists to try to convince Congress to ban online gambling. “My moral standard compels me to speak out on this issue because I am the largest company by far in the industry and I am willing to speak out. I don’t see any compelling reason for the government to allow people to gamble on the Internet and nobody has ever explained except for the two companies whose special interest is going to be served if there is gaming on the Internet, Caesars and MGM.”

How about freedom motherfucker!?!? I think the rights that I was born with and the liberty my Constitution is supposed to guarantee should be be compelling enough if you weren't a fascist asshole Mr. Adelson! Fuck you and your monopoly driven desires.

Brian4Liberty
11-23-2013, 06:45 PM
Hyman Roth's dream: a partnership with government.

kpitcher
11-23-2013, 07:20 PM
he must be livid about stories like this http://www.dailydot.com/news/biggest-bitcoin-win-gambling-history-nakowa/

Sure you can't gambling directly with Credit cards.. doesn't take much work to gamble with bitcoins. Or all the other variety of ways.

Icymudpuppy
11-23-2013, 07:49 PM
Protectionism at its finest.