Jan Jones is the senior Harrah’s VP in charge of their Internet Gambling legalization effort in Washington. Harrah’s has been pushing all year long to legalize Internet gambling nationwide, bringing a casino (legally) into every family’s living room and den. They own the extremely lucrative World Series of Poker license as well as have the best player rewards club with locations in over a dozen states. No American casino is better positioned to take advantage of legalized Internet gambling than Harrahs.

Additionally, Harrah’s is planning an IPO early next year for Harrah’s Interactive, and legalizing Internet gambling would tremendously boost the stock value and make megabucks for the company. Plus, what better job for Harry Reid to go into after involuntary retirement than to be the head federal lobbyist for Harrah’s to lobby the writing of regualtions by the feds on the bill he sneaks through in a few weeks. A couple of million for that, plus a piece of the IPO, and voila, Harry is even more set for his ‘golden’ years.

Here is how it is going to come down. In the first 6 months of this year, Harrah’s and illegal overseas Internet gambling sites spent $10 million pushing HR 2267, the Barney Frank bill to legalize Internet gambling. They got the bill out of the committee, but pressure from the Blue Dogs and others kept it from being called to the floor.

Now that they are blocked in the House, their strategy rests with Reid. Word is that Reid staff and Harrah’s worked together to write a bill during the August congressional recess, and decided to keep it under wraps while Frank’s bill took the fire. They plan on introducing it in the lame duck session.

(With respect to my libertarian friends who think Internet gambling should be legal, I appreciate your opinion but I can guarantee you that the way the legislation will be crafted will result in further job losses in the US and reward illegal overseas sites who have breaking US laws for years by giving them a get out of jail free card. It would be like the feds issuing Al Capone the first liquor license at the end of Prohibition because he has the best distribution network)

The Joint Tax Committee says that legalized Internet gambling could raise $42 billion over the next ten years. So the Reid/Harrah’s/overseas plan is to stick a rider at the very last minute into a tax or spending bill during the lame duck session as a way to ‘pay for’ some additional Democrat spending to pay off their election allies. With Reid in the catbird’s seat for the final weeks of the Congress, they figure there is no way it can be stopped, and Harrah’s and the illegal overseas sites who have been pushing legalization for years will make billions and Harry gets a cushy sendoff from his corporate friends.

This is why you are seeing managment at Harrah’s literally doing everything they can to re-elect Reid, even getting in bed with the strange bedfellows of their employee unions. It’s all about the money to be made on the Internet, and having a puppet in DC to pull the trigger on their plan during the lame duck.

I wonder if the union bosses and Harrah’s people told the working stiffs they are hounding to go vote for Reid today that the reason they are pushing for their man Harry so hard is to get some legislation that may well cost some of them their jobs. It takes thousands to run a vibrant casino, but only about half a dozen to set up an Internet gambling website in a offshore tax haven . . . .