Morongo Still Pushing For Legalized Internet Gambling

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians faced skepticism from other gaming tribes this week at the Western Indian Gaming Conference in their effort to gain support for legalized Internet gambling.

Morongo Tribal Chairman Robert Martin expressed is opinion that “time was short” fearing that the increasingly popular online gambling sites will result in lost business to the states gaming tribes.

Congress is currently considering two bills that would end the federal ban on online gambling in the U.S. If online gambling is made legal it is predicted that there would be an explosion of Internet poker sites inside and outside the country.

"You saw what (the Internet) did to the newspaper industry, the record industry. We don't want that to happen to us," Marin said.

Last summer the Morongo proposed legislation that would create a gambling website run by the tribe, card clubs and other consortium members where the state would ge t a cut, but other tribes objected believing all that would do would allow their customers to stay home to gamble, cutting business from their brick and mortar casinos.

But the Morongo are still hopeful but so far they have not found an author for legislation containing the online poker proposal.

A Senate committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the issue next month