Two D.C. Council members want to crush the hopes of the District's compulsive, unemployed bettors by blocking the implementation of online gambling here.

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DCist reports that Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) and Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) will introduce legislation at a session today that would repeal an online gambling measure slipped into a supplemental budget bill last year by Councilman Michael A. Brown, and thereby prohibit the launch of D.C. Lottery's proposed iGaming website.

As the Post reports,

One issue is that District officials did not put the city’s online gambling business out for competitive bid, unlike similar government-approved efforts in places such as Canada and Finland. Intralot, a Greek-owned lottery contractor, was granted the multimillion-dollar opportunity to run the online casino when it won a fierce competition to run the city’s traditional lottery system.

Another issue: Brown worked at a law firm with a gambling practice. And then, as always, there are the security concerns, plus the argument that gambling is addictive and preys on the poor. Proponents, meanwhile, say it's all about the increased revenue, which would help, say, reopen the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on Sundays — so that residents could use the library's computers to bet on poker.