Senate committee means little, just that I am surprised it got there so quick. I am sorry don't have any sources like I did in the House, the Senate is a completely different animal.
I wouldn't even speculate on what passes. The thing is that a lot of people have said "we will pass something then tack on the penalties in adjustment". Now how can anyone know what will come out of that? That is like saying we can't get things done in a normal fashion, but once we get behind closed doors we will work out a deal we could never pass in regular voting. Such a load of crap. I have just about given up on this. To put it simply, I don't know. I don't know if it will pass. I don't know what form it would pass in. I don't know what penalties it will have or who would be penalized. I don't know who is responsible to enforce it. I don't know what industries or activities will get carveouts. There are a ton of what ifs and frankly I don't think ANYONE can say until they see the version of the bill that would go to W to sign, if it gets that far. If someone else claims to know before then, they are SPECULATING. This is exactly the reason why I always say Congress has too much time on its hands and falsely believes it has mandates to "do something". In sum this bill has little general support, but even worse it has even less opposition. While there are a lot of groups that might oppose it, they could get some ambiguous carveout that could get them on board. And there are a lot of things that a reasonable judge could find in the final bill that would get it tossed out if someone fights it. For that reason alone its in the interest of Kyl and others to carve it out left and right hoping that they avoid getting it tossed back at them.
So worry if you want, but I don't bother with it. I don't think they will stop anyone with whatever they might pass and I don't think the conditions for sports betting will be any better or worse a year or two from now than they are today. Illegal betting has flourished for over a century with far tougher burdens to stop it, why should ineffective legislation stop anyone from betting now as technology has made betting more simple and reachable for the masses?