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Columnist Jon Ralston: Why Vote No on VegasOne.com? Council Can Count the Ways

No matter. It's dead. But death in political terms is not quite the same as flatlining in real life. As anyone who has followed any legislative process knows, resurrections not only happen, they are routine. A bill killed one day resurfaces the next -- or maybe even the same day. These are not religious experiences; they are S.O.P.

And that's why late Tuesday, Nevada Resort Association President Bill Bible sent a missive over to Las Vegas City Attorney Brad Jerbic on the Internet gaming proposal. The gamers already have taken the temperature at City Hall during the last 10 days or so and found the council less than feverishly behind Goodman's scheme. His Honor actually has recused himself, and Councilman Michael Mack also has ducked out because one of his consultants once worked for the VegasOne.com venture.

But the gamers are taking no chances. The NRA hired Jack Godfrey of the newly reconstituted firm of Schreck Brignone Godfrey to analyze the city's possible partnership with the company that wants to use the city seal to attract people to its Internet gaming website. Godfrey's analysis "raises serious concerns" about the proposal, Bible wrote to Jerbic in a cover letter. Does it ever.

Godfrey raises several cogent legal points, some of which have been obvious to laymen watching this spectacle unfold during the last few weeks:

Liability: Godfrey wrote that if the website accepted wagers from the United States, where Internet gaming is banned, "the City of Las Vegas, through its City Council, could also be determined to be in violation of such laws" because the city would be sharing in revenues from the enterprise.

Technology: Godfrey pointed out in his missive that despite claims by the proponents that U.S. bettors could be blocked, "the state of technology is not such that an Internet gaming site can guarantee that it can block wagers from within the United States."

Sports betting: Godfrey assumes that like most Internet gaming sites, VegasOne.com would offer sports betting, which is outlawed by an animal called the

Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. You may recognize the law -- it's the same one with the Nevada loophole that John McCain & Co. are trying to close to outlaw sports wagering in Nevada. But this part that Godfrey quotes has nothing to do with Nevada and says only that a government entity cannot "sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license or authorize by law or compact ... a betting, gaming, or wagering scheme ...."

False advertising: Godfrey, like your friendly neighborhood pundit, went to the VegasOne.com website and saw how the backers are making all kinds of claims to have the city's imprimatur. Wrote Godfrey: "Clearly, it appears that VegasOne.com will attempt to use the seal and name of the city of Las Vegas so that it can distinguish itself from all other Internet gaming companies by holding itself out, perhaps falsely, as a 'fully registered' Nevada gaming entity."

Godfrey also points out that the lump sums promised by the backers could be hardly lumpy if the profits turned out to be minimal. And then he concluded: "Based on the foregoing, it is our view that the City of Las Vegas, through its City Council, would be exposing itself to serious issues of potential violations of federal and state law through a proposed association with VegasOne.com."

Call it an opinion written to order by the gamers who as Johnny Come Latelys have tried to kill a proposal that already was dying of its own weight -- not to mention the weight of common sense and Stupak's baggage.

Godfrey may be stabbing a corpse. But he's also, as a political veteran like Bible knows, provided the council with yet another peg on which to hang its hat as it prepares today for the funeral for VegasOne.com.

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