But Tonko is not prepared to throw in the towel. No other member of Congress has yet publicly endorsed his campaign against betting ads, launched nine months ago. The crusade has so far been a solitary one. The congressman is calling for a federal crackdown to halt a “public health crisis” from engulfing the country – starting with a nationwide ban on advertising. This now-legal sector’s sprint must be stopped, according to Tonko, who has become its fiercest critic on Capitol Hill. Now, in most of America, placing a wager has never been so easy. Barely a dozen years ago, US authorities were still arresting and jailing online gambling executives.
The transformation of official attitudes to online gambling has been head-spinning. The gambling capital of the world is playing host to one of its largest sporting events for the first time in February – less than six years after the supreme court set the stage for sports betting’s surge across much of the United States.
