Pres. Richard Nixon signed the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 into law on 15 October. The act was in reality a long list of ideas rather than a comprehensive coherent package of tools with which to deal with organized crime. Some called it “a smorgasbord of legal odds and ends” and a series of “nuts and bolts” for dealing with crime.
Among the matters of concern in the act was gambling. The act provided federal tools for enforcing state provisions on gambling under certain conditions. Penalties were provided for persons who financed, owned, managed, supervised, or directed an illegal gambling enterprise. The illegal enterprises had to involve five or more persons who acted contrary to state and local law to participate in gambling over a period of thirty days or more with revenues involved exceeding $2,000 for a single day. If two people conspired to break a state law on gambling and one was a public official, the federal government was also empowered to take action against the offenders. The act also authorized the appointment of the Commission on the Review of National Policy toward Gambling, which was appointed in 1974 and made a report of its findings in 1976.
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