A poll held by America’s highest selling newspaper USA Today has indicated that the huge majority of Americans support online gambling and believe the draconian constraints placed upon it by the Bush administration should now be lifted.

The poll was prompted following a story on Congressman Jim McDermott’s proposed taxation bill on online gambling introduced last week. When asked the question ‘is it time to legalise online gambling?‘, 97 percent of respondents said ‘yes‘ while three percent said ‘no‘. Experts have stressed that the winning votes should be recognised as ‘pro-regulation‘ rather than ‘pro-legalisation‘ as there is already wide acceptance in America that, regardless of the law, online casinos will still do business in the US.

The comprehensive result of the Poll encouraged former Golf star Lee Trevino to speak out on what he perceives to be incorrect stances taken by those in Washington in relation to online gambling and betting in general.

“We gamble billions of dollars in this country, and the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t get a dime,” Lee Trevino tells ESPN.com’s.  “Instead, they spend millions of dollars trying to catch these people.”

Last week Representative Jim McDermott introduced a bill to Congress that will eventually help legalize and regulate online gambling.  His plan has high hopes for the slumping economy, which is of course in a near-recession at the present moment. 

The bill, if passed, could generate nearly $40 billion in additional tax revenue to the US Government over the next ten years!

“We have gambling on horses. All of a sudden we say you can’t gamble online. What’s that about? If we can take revenue from horse racing we certainly can take revenue from online,” says an optimistic McDermott.