Senator Robert Menendez
Senator Robert Menendez Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey officially entered the online casino debate on Capital Hill Thursday when he introduced legislation that would legalize and regulate online poker. He has joined a growing list of politicians who are in favor of legal Internet gambling.

Menendez's plan would make online poker legal, and would tax the industry. A ten percent tax would be collected when a player makes a deposit to an online poker site, and the tax would go to both state and federal governments.

The proposal comes on a day when it was learned that Douglas Rennick was indicted on charges relating to online poker. Rennick is accused of opening bank accounts under different corporation names. The accounts, according to authorities, were then used to send checks to winning online poker players.

Financial institutions will almost certainly be behind the new legislation from Menendez. They are saddled with the burden of having to figure out which transactions are online gambling related, and denying those transactions.

The financial institutions have already stated their case to the federal government. They testified that it would cost too much in resources to come up with a system that would deny the online gambling transactions.

While Menendez is leading the charge on the Senate side, Representative Barney Frank is the vocal leader of the House. Rep. Frank has introduced similar legislation to Menendez' already, but Frank's Bill would legalize all forms of Internet gambling except for sports betting.

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