Barney Frank Speaks out on Online Poker Bust

Barney Frank has weighed in on the events that took place last Friday when the US Federal Government and the NY State Prosecutor seized four of the top online poker sites on the internet and arrested three of their founders. In an interview with “The Hill” Frank was quoted as saying “What an incredible waste of resources” by the FBI and Justice Department. He even went as far as to heckle their reasons as “protecting the public from the scourge of inside straights”. He also went on to comment that the Justice Department is more interested in arresting and seizing online poker sites than finding those responsible for the mortgage crisis and financial meltdown that the entire country is feeling.

Frank is outraged by the events of “Black Friday” and has no problem voicing his concerns over the government’s use of resources and time on something that should be legal to all US citizens. Frank tried to pass a bill he authored in 2010 but was completely stopped by Republicans who are defiantly against any form of legal online gambling in the US. This year he has begun the process of re-introducing the same bill but this time with help from Representative John Campbell [R-Calif.]. Hopes were high that this time there would be enough backlash from conservatives who view banning online gambling as problematic because it gives the federal government the right to intervene in a free market and ask banks to regulate and police online transactions which is an enormous job and almost impossible to manage, not to mention the huge revenue that would be brought into a country that so sorely needs a fiscal boost.

The three sites involved in the crackdown of last Friday had an average year of $16 billion in wagers and this revenue could greatly help this countries economic crisis.