CEO of Las Vegas Sands Says Online Poker Moral Evil

Chairman and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation Sheldon Adelson doesn't like online poker. In an op-ed piece in a well-known online company followed by an interview with Bloomberg Television, the multi-billionaire American business magnate didn't pull any punches:

"It's a threat to our society" a toxin which all good people ought to resist," Adelson wrote. The fast approaching 80 year old who has two teenage sons, has expressed fears that college students, while high on drugs, could gamble away all their money from the privacy of their dorm rooms.

Reasons for Adelson's Disdain

While Adelson makes claims that online gaming will hurt the brick-and-mortar casino business, he says that is not his reason for opposition.

"I don't want my children to have the opportunity to become addicted to gaming, and poker in my opinion would be one of the most addictive games because people don't get addicted necessarily to playing blackjack," Adelson further wrote.

He even said that Internet Poker was not a game of skill.

To say the least, this has not gone over well with online gaming executives.

"It's a complete slap in the face to every poker player," said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

"It's a slap in the face to our organization that spent a lot of time educating lawmakers as to why poker is different, not only because we want it to be so but because it is so. Poker is a game of skill that he seems to deny it calls into question if he really understands the game at all."

Adelson's had said that Internet Poker was "fool's gold economically ...a plague and cancer waiting to happen morally ...an insult to poker players everywhere."

Where's Online Poker Headed?

Meanwhile, American Gaming Association president Frank Fahrenkopf said back in February that all AGA board members including Las Vegas Sands were now in favor of federal online poker legislation. This led to speculation, at the time, that Adelson perhaps had changed his tune.

However, the Forbes piece showed this was far from the case. He's not just going to keep his company away from online gaming. His stated goal is to have no less than Congress pass a bill making online gambling illegal.