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Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D) has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the Ferguson, Missouri police fatal shooting of an unarmed Black teenager and its subsequent protests.
Following the shooting, it took a number of days for Nixon to make an appearance in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb. He eventually had to call a state of emergency after some of the protests turned violent.
Our own Thomas Somach notes that Nixon’s past history as it relates to the world of online gambling is not a pretty one.
"The Missouri Governor was the first to aggressively go after online gambling websites while acting as the 'Show Me State'’s Attorney General.," Somach recalled.
In 1997, Nixon persuaded a state court to fine a Pennsylvania online gaming company for doing business within its borders and sued an Idaho Indian tribe operating a lottery over the Internet. The PA site was eventually shut down.
"Gambling is a highly regulated industry in Missouri,” he argued at the time. “But all of these protections are not there on the Internet."
Nixon was among the first to suggest that children were especially vulnerable when it came to online gambling.
“As things stand now, the online casinos allow a 10-year-old with his father's MasterCard,” he said.
Missouri has been front and center of the fight against online gambling in recent years as well. It was a St. Louis U.S. District Court that charged several individuals with running the now defunct online gambling juggernaut BetOnSports in 2007.
For his part, Nixon has mostly remained mum on the topic of Internet gambling since becoming Missouri’s Governor.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
