My Last Post About Sheldon

Sheldon Adelson is dead.

The casino mogul, super-rich mega-donor to the GOP, and staunch opponent of online gambling, died at age 87 after battling cancer.  Fans of this blog (both of you) know that of all of my posts dating back these many moons, no one has incurred my wrath more than “Uncle Shelly,” mostly for his stand against online poker/gambling and his Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling (CSIG).

My first anti-Adelson post was in 2012, the last one on 4/1/2017 (though he got a bonus mention in December).  That April Fool’s Day post has my favorite pic of Sheldon (as a pimp – how apropos), and also facetiously announced the “death” of CSIG.  Of course, as of this writing CSIG is all but dead, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

But first, the numbers: 70 of my 293 posts (almost a quarter of ‘em all) had something about Adelson; that’s 12 more than my current #1 villain, Donald Trump.  Interestingly, there were nine posts that had both Trump and Adelson in them.  Talk about bonuses.  

But Sheldon was my favorite whipping boy/punching bag.  Hell, I even dove into creating my first comic strip, “A Chip and a Chairman” to make fun of the hearings he helped arrange with noted Republican Putz Jason Chaffetz.  Kids, if I can be goaded into created COMICS to help my rage, anything is possible.  Hell, I did TWO of ‘em!

But now…this is the last post about Adelson, and hopefully, CSIG (it’s #71 for those of you keeping score).  Yes, now that Sheldon is gone, so should be CSIG.  I mean, for all practical purposes it’s on life-support if not already keeled over –

• The website hasn’t been updated since February, 2019
• Their Facebook page’s last post was in 2018 *
• Their Twitter page is “still active” (last post was in September 2020), but – almost ALL of the posts are of FOREIGN gaming issues (UK mostly, some New Zealand posts).  It’s almost as if they can’t find any issues about online gaming in America, for some reason.  Imagine that!

* fun side note – if you look at the FB posts, you’ll see hardly any comments to their posts, except from one determined individual who seems intent on making sport of their concerns (yeah, that’s me).

So someone is still collecting a paycheck, but…for what, exactly?

And Sheldon’s attempt to rewrite RAWA (Restoration of America’s Wire Act) is all but a faded memory; those politicians who took up the mantle (and Sheldon’s money) to fight for it are old, battered, and have other fish to fry (Feinstein, Graham, Chaffetz, and their ilk).  That ship has long sailed, and while progress via states adding online poker is slow, online gambling for other games (lottery, slots, etc.) is growing, and online sports betting is off the charts, where soon you’ll be able to take Ohio State and lots of points almost everywhere except Utah and Hawai’i (sorry, I could not resist that dig).

So while other’s will extol Adelson’s virtues and sing his praises (admittedly he was one of the first in Las Vegas to promise to continue to pay employees when casinos closed last Spring because of COVID; then again, who best could afford it if not him?), I will take a hard pass.  I will also not mourn the disbanding (whenever it’s official) of CSIG and I look forward to the day when I can finally play poker online legally here in Oregon. 

Of course, I also hope that occurs before I wind up like Adelson.