Posted on 10/13/2006 5:03:36 PM PDT by KDD
EDITORIAL: Internet gambling 'ban'
Americans are playing poker online? Oh, the humanity!
Of the myriad policy crises churning on the horizon -- entitlement insolvency, illegal immigration and runaway federal spending among them -- congressional Republicans chose to spend the little political capital they have left on an Internet gambling ban.
With brick-and-mortar casinos in nearly every state and card games breaking into network television, millions of moralists found it unbearable that Americans were wagering about $6 billion per year on the Web. That their neighbors might be playing poker or placing sports bets from the comfort of their desk chairs demanded federal intervention. "Ban it!" they cried. "Misguided citizens will lose their homes! Their children will starve! Families will be destroyed!"
Never mind the folly of legislating leisure. (That Prohibition thing was a rousing success, wasn't it? And certainly, no sports wagering takes place outside of Nevada.) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was determined to please his base with a new law before November's election, no matter how flawed or misguided it might be.
The cause was so preposterous it couldn't win passage as a stand-alone bill. Sen. Frist first tried to attach the Internet gambling ban to a defense appropriations bill. No luck. So he slipped it into port security legislation that passed the House and Senate early Saturday. A Bush administration official indicated the president plans to sign the bill into law.
And so no children will be forced into homelessness, their parents now prohibited from using personal checks, credit cards or electronic fund transfers to pay off Internet bets placed with online casinos and sports books. The costly, irresistible temptation of playing games of chance on personal computers has been eradicated. Right?
Wrong. Not only did Sen. Frist have to lard up the ports bill to win passage for his pet project, he included enough exemptions to rival the IRS tax code.
The bill permits Web-based betting on horse racing and for state lotteries. It also allows state-licensed casinos, once authorized within their jurisdiction, to construct Web sites with online poker and casino-style gaming. And these casinos would be allowed to provide links to other states and countries where gambling is legal.
So rather than deliver a "ban," Sen. Frist merely cut off the American market from online gambling sites based in Britain and the Caribbean. Like most heavy-handed regulations, this "ban" is really just thinly veiled protectionism.
"In order to get this bill passed, they (Republicans) sold their souls. They gave so many exceptions that it's now a wide-open area," attorney Tony Cabot, editor of the Internet Gambling Report and co-editor of the Gaming Law Review, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
This Internet gambling "ban" is nothing close to a ban at all -- and that's a good thing. It's foolish to think the Internet gambling genie can be stuffed back into its bottle. Technology is driving the evolution of the gaming industry, so it makes perfect sense that regulated American companies should be allowed to conduct business with their millions of customers through the World Wide Web.
The bill could bring some short-term pain to MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment, which use Internet poker sites to place some entrants in their own poker tournaments. But they'll figure out how to rebuild their qualification networks. The opportunities now available to Nevada gaming companies are staggering in their scope.
"The casino lobbyists in Washington, D.C., thought this was a pretty good deal. It's actually better than that," Mr. Cabot said. "It really opens up the field. It knocks out the offshore companies, and leaves the legal licensees open to take their positions."
It remains to be seen, however, whether the American conservatives who demanded this legislation will think it's a good deal. More likely, they'll realize sometime soon that they've been taken by a sucker bet.
You've still got some money LEFT!?
Memo to Agent 329:
Track down this dudes ISP and let's just relieve him of having to figger out what to spend his remainder on...
Now you've finally made a correct statement. Morality is about freely doing what God wants not about being coerced to do what the government wants.
So you think abortion is ok, also? That's a choice issue too. And please don't tell me that abortion is different because gambling destroys lives too, and not just the one gambling.
Not the way of the political animal with the big horny snout.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll516.xml
The GOP? The Vote was 409-2..190 of those voting for the ban were Democrats. 218 were pubbies. They are equal opportunity panderers.
BTW, I, think the internet gambling ban had more to do with the casinos, than saving our souls.
DING! DING! DING!
We have a winner!
This was all about raising money in DC. If we could figure out how to make deporting illegal immigrants into a moneymaker for FedGov, the problem will be solved in less than a fortnight.
The campaign contributions from the domestic gamblinig interests was really just icing on the cake.
Because Frist attached to a port security bill, which nobody was going to vote against.
IMO, we should close their casinos at home, while they're closing gambling with online casinos.
So you think abortion is ok, also?
I don't know anyone who thinks an abortion is "OK", do you?
I think it's more than just the casinos, but all of it has to do with money. If I read my history correctly, we used to have politicians and bureaucrats who assumed the authority to save souls, and it got ugly.
Of course not, and if you'd read my post more carefully you'd understand that I was arguing just the opposite.
As I said, the mandate of government is not to get rid of every - or any - evil just for the sake of doing so, but to protect society, which results in evil being curtailed.
Anyone who think this law was passed to enforce moral code is either hopelessly naive or hopelessly trusting. This was strictly about $$$$$$$$$$$.
By the way, like drug abuse, gambling has been found to most adversly effect the poor and lower class more so than the rest of society.So the people who can afford it the least are hurt the most.
Yep. Only the better-educated, upper classes patronize betting scams like this.
Does the state make them blow their meager income playing the Lotto?
C'mon, Jorge, this is too easy. The hypocrisy of this bill is thick enough to cut with a knife.
It's enough to make me want to learn poker just so I can break this fricken law.
Public records show the NFL has spent more than $3m on lobbying since 1998. Last year, it paid one Washington company, Covington & Burling, $700,000 to lobby on gambling and other issues. Two of its lobbyists, Martin Gold and Bill Wichterman, are former senior aides to Dr Frist.
Gamble away. Just change the bankruptcy protection laws. Every penny must be repaid, with interest. Hold the spouse and the children liable (Hey, they all stood to gain, didn't they? Then they all deserve to lose.)
Gambling away the nest egg is not the problem. Gambling away money borrowed from credit cards and other sources drives up MY interest rates and other costs.
Change the bankruptcy protection laws. ALL money must be repaid with interest.
Cool! Send me $100 and call heads or tails. I'll let you know if you won.
This oughtta be called the National Internet Gambling Authorization Act.
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