Since Black Friday the fight for iGaming expansion has been waged at state houses across the country. But that all changed in 2014 when Sheldon Adelson made it his personal mission to ban online gambling.

Considering how important this issue is, and how thoroughly it dominated the headlines toward the end of the year, you might be surprised to find this at #7, particularly considering how many columns I wrote on this in 2014, but there is a reason for that. With online gambling already legalized in three states, and several other states in the process of sorting out iGaming legislation, Adelson’s crusade was something of a fool’s errand.

A lot of people would have placed RAWA and Adelson’s efforts to ban online gambling a bit higher, but all along it seemed like a long shot. There were a few scares along the way, but in the end it was much as I expected early on, much ado about nothing.

Still, you have to give him credit; Adelson put up a hell of a fight in 2014.