Marco Rubio, senator for the US state of Florida and a Republican presidential candidate, is co-sponsor of a senate bill that seeks to ban online gambling, yet his position relating to online poker may be more flexible, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“On the issue of internet poker, the only difference between the poker games and the others is that it involves an element of skill associated with and compared with just a slot machine online,” Rubio told the Review-Journal.
“So that's the one area that distinguishes it a little bit.”
However, Las Vegas Sands senior vice president of government relations Andy Abboud, whose boss, LVS chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, is campaigning against online gambling, said: “There is no carve-out from the bill's sponsors.
“There may be some varying opinions from the co-sponsors, but there really isn't any push for it."
While offering a glimmer of hope to online poker operators Rubio reiterated his backing of the bill, as he is concerned about i-gaming’s “rapid expansion in an unregulated way.”
