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Today's Numbers: 17 42 69 ^H ^H ^H
Gannoc writes "An
article at MSNBC tells of the internet gambling ban heading to the house floor. The interesting part of this article explains that American ISPs will be required to block access to all Internet gambling sites, from lists provided to them by American law enforcement agencies. Does this set a dangerous precident for free speech on the internet?" Well, as I read it the bill, only the ISP hosting the site would be required to take it down, no ISP would have a general duty to block access. It's still very similar to Australian censorship laws passed last year, especially in its DMCA-like requirement that the censorship must occur immediately when the notice is received, before any court hearing, which is unconstitutional prior restraint of speech. My question is simple: what's the difference between illegal gambling and state-sanctioned lotteries?
If the Merchant has proof of signature (even if forged!) the Card Company loses.
If the Merchant does not have proof of signature the Merchant loses. This case is common for online/telephone transactions - no signatures.
Card user hardly ever loses if they bother to kick up a fuss. Only loses indirectly through higher fees (if any - competition is so great).
ASIDE: The whole reason why card companies want SET is so that they can prevent themselves from losing money, and to prevent the whole system going to the dogs due to massive uncontrollable fraud. It's not to protect the card users. The card users are insulated - you didn't lose money.
Cheerio,
Link.
"I don't like to think lottery as a tax for the mathematically disinclined, as one joke goes, because my own grandparents enjoyed purchasing lottery tickets and they kind of do it just for fun)"
But couldn't your grandparents have MORE fun for LESS money by doing something else? Like going to a casino? Or touching matches to $100 bills? That means they are STILL bad at math because they aren't getting most bang for the buck.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
That's cultural. Orientals believe in predestination; so if they believe that they will win, nothing will stop them from gambling.
* * *
Reminds me of the last time the jehovah witness came to my place. I knew they were coming, 'cause I saw them bang on my neighbour's doors, then heard the same doors slam soon enough afterwards. Turns out that I was just about to take my shower, so when they rang the door, I answered them naked, and when they turned around, I just followed them on the street, until the corner, still naked.
They never came back.
I whish we had baptists here, so I could do the trick again on them...
--
Here's my mirror
Yes, that is precisely the logic Hitler used. The term for that is "eugenics"-- trying to cleanse the population of one or another form of apparent ill (in his case, Jews, in your case, the stupid). While it is true that smarter people tend to have smarter kids, there's no real proof that this is necessarily good for evolution under Darwin. For one thing, choosing population as a criteria for evolutionary success, it is not clear that intelligence is a good thing. Higher IQ people breed fewer children. (And our geniuses are bringing us much closer to armageddon than Forrest Gump ever would've.) By this criteria, intelligence is bad for the species.
My point is not to claim that population is a proper criteria for evolutionary success, but rather to point out that Darwin's model doesn't really prove anything about society. Attempts to justify "killing society's failures" through lack of compassion, based on Social Darwinist grounds, assume that whatever element those people have failed at (intelligence in this case) is relevant to the prolonging of the human species. Clearly it ISN'T. The actual attributes that make for a successful branch of offspring can't really be determined. If the human genome is diluted by hereditary stupidity, it doesn't seem to make any difference to Darwin. Ultimately "eugenics" can be reduced to a code word for scapegoating. Killing off all the idiots in the world won't make you more likely to get laid.
I agree that laws protecting stupid people have gotten out of hand. But I wouldn't go so far as to throw Darwin into the equation (and for the record there is a substantial difference between Darwinism and "Social Darwinism" as advocated by philosophers like Herbert Spencer). Darwinism has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with society; don't drag an innocent man's name into the mud.
I think there IS evidence that lousy treatment of society's more unfortunate people leads to crime. Atlantic City is full of same, although I think Las Vegas has been more effective at sweeping crime under the rug (ex post facto). As for those poor saps wasting their grocery money on lotteries, the essential fact is that they should be warned in advance that there is no way to win. This is a failure of public education--most people in our country can barely tell plus from minus. I don't think the lottery can really be justified until there is evidence that everyone can take care of their own finances responsibly. Yes, I'm a Socialist, is that so wrong? At least I'm not tacitly supporting Hitler.
Besides, how much fun is it to slowly pour your money down the drain, that you would let people go hungry for the right to do it? You can model blackjack as follows: randomly take a number between 1 and 100, and if it's below 48 you can double your investment, otherwise I get it. Watch as I become rich and you become poor and suddenly your politics change.
Ben Chadwick - Editor, Zero Future/Post-Collegiate Malaise
"What's the difference between asking a woman out, buying her dinner, paying for a movie, and then going to bed, vs.
just handing her the cash up front and jumping directly into bed?"
The difference is that the date, dinner, movie, etc. ususally ends with a "Let's Just Be Friends" instead of "going to bed."
Nice guys sleep alone...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
No, I fucked up :) People are stupid across all class lines. But often the poor are less well-educated. Cyclically the lack of money leads toward less educational resources, and the crummy education leads to lack of money; poor districts, such as Biloxi, Mississippi, also have less money to convert into taxes to support schools. So the casinos in Biloxi with equal access for rich and poor can't be doing too much good for the locals, jobs aside. And a rich man's dollar is a much smaller percentage of his treasury than a poor man's dollar.
Ben Chadwick - Editor, Zero Future/Post-Collegiate Malaise
I wonder how this would affect sites which offer the other kind of on-line gambling, such as Everquest?
This seems to meet my definition of an on-line gambling system (on line, skill or luck allows you to gain or lose tokens which can be exchanged for cash, etc.)
A new kind of meat designed to appeal to vegetarians.
Of course, if you're going to have people working as professional prostitutes (which is legal in parts of Nevada) then it strikes me that it would be a good idea to require health inspections, etc. due to the risk of spreading disease.
;)
But I'd personally like to see the OSHA requirements
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
What's the differance? WHO GETS ALL THE FILTHY "MONEY"!! See that was easy. don't you feel better now? Inventor.
You transfer some money to an offshore account of some other form of virtual money,securly log on to a foreign gambling website and gamble? Could the government use the fact that you logged into their IP as cause to break your encryption and prosecute you? Would this be considered money laundering?
As to the main question, government likes to play vice lord so they can tightly control business prone to corruption. Gambling, liquor and drugs. Unfortunately government is just a succeptable to corruption. See the FLA lotto where the government lied and told their constituents that money derived through the lotto would be used to bolster public education, not as a tool to cut school budgets. A year later they cut the education budget claiming the lottery revenue more than made up the difference. ex:
Taxes->Education
Taxes+Lotto->Better education
and what really happened
Newtaxes=(Oldtaxes-Lotto)+Lotto->Same old education
Legislators count on the public being stupid and gullible. Same thing has happened in many states. Can't wait till they go after lotto like they did tobacco. Talk about addiction. Stop by 7-11 sometime and wait in line behind the 20 people lined up to buy lotto tickets with the money they got by cashing
The mandate for government to "protect" its people is by no means complete. For instance, law enforcement is NOT required to protect everybody, and generally is NOT liable for preventing crimes -- but only dealing with them after the fact.
There is no right to success or happiness, either. In fact, it's arguably not the Gov't business if you choose to violently mutilate yourself...
There is, actually, no Constitutional right to safety or well-being, and no mandate to "protect" them from themselves.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
They're not making blanket statements like that. They're saying "online gambling's illegal, so let's ban online casino's". It's a direct cause and effect sort of thing, like saying that "automatic weapons are illegal, so let's ban automatic weapons"... Restating the obvious.
American laws are null and void outside of your borders. It pisses me off when people forget that. This isn't about domistic online casinos, because those are subject to the laws of your country. This is about international sites. To carry your analogy forward, it's like congress banning AK-47's in South Africa. Do you think that will do anything?
There is no free speech issue associated with the barring of gambling sites and fining the operators of those sites if they accept wagers from Americans. If you don't like the laws here, just leave....
THIS ISN'T ABOUT AMERICAN SITES. You cannot legislate for other countries - your laws are null and void. Did you read the article? You, as an american, can do jack squat to stop me (in a country where my online site is legal) from taking money from you. If the legal age of consent and majority in a country is 14, there's nothing stopping me from selling you haRdc0r3 of a 14 year-old. Possessing that material in the US a completely different matter.
The difference is just that: you have to leave the country, or at least go to specific areas of the country where gambling is allowed in order to gamble. They're not going after Vegas, Atlantic City, or any of the Indian reservations. They're going after companies that operate outside of thsoe strict confines.
It would be an interesting legal precentent to see if surfing a web site of a foreign country allows you to be governed by their content laws. I don't think one exists currently. IANAL, either.
..don't panic
Why do our elected officials feel it is necessary to pass laws which protect us from ourself?
The reason is that not everyone is as responsible and mature as you are:
Why is prostitution illegal - women should be able to earn money any way they want, right?
Why are drugs illegal - people should have the freedom to destroy their health, right?
The fact is that some people need some guidance and protection. As far as gambling is concerned, I have met people who gamble a lot, and they don't know anything about statistics; they don't even know that the odds are against them (in all gambling games) and the more they play the more they will loose.
I enjoy the experience of going to the movies, and I always leave the movie theatre with less money than I went in with. Should the government ban movies because they are clearly taking money from the public?
Gambling and going to the movies are not the same thing. Gambling is addictive, it has destroyed families, lives, and fortunes. Regulating it is a good thing. I'm not saying that banning ISPs from hosting gambling sites is the right approach, but the Internet does make it too easy for misguided people to lose a lot of money very fast.
No, the government should let the public make their own decisions on what form of entertainment they will spend their money on.
As I said above this is not always possible. The government also has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and sometimes it is hard to balance these things. Ideally, everyone would have a good education and would know when to gamble and when to stop, and the government wouldn't have to interfere, but saddly this is not the case right now.
As far as casinos are concerned, they are not ideal either (and that was the understatement of the year). Just because they are allowed to operate in some places doesn't mean we should make it even easier for people to gamble. And at least casinos are regulated, in some obscure and corrupt way of course.
Whiskey and bourbon are really the same thing by the way. But you can only call it bourbon if it was made in Kentucky.
--------------------------------
Check out AbiWord.
THIS ISN'T ABOUT AMERICAN SITES. You cannot legislate for other countries - your laws are null and void. Did you read the article? You, as an american, can do jack squat to stop me (in a country where my online site is legal) from taking money from you. If the legal age of consent and majority in a country is 14, there's nothing stopping me from selling you haRdc0r3 of a 14 year-old. Possessing that material in the US a completely different matter.
You just don't "get it". It is illegal to traffic illegal goods into the US (such as drugs), and people who do these things are breaking the law. Similarly, it should be illegal to transfer network data which carries out illegal activity into the US. There is no difference between bringing drugs into the US and replying to network traffic which is requesting to place illegal bets into to the US. Which part of this don't you understand?
That is pretty much my opinion on drugs. However, my opinions aren't so strongly held since I haven't been anywhere where drugs are legal.
What business does the government have telling its citizens what beverages they can make and what beverages they cannot make?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
You know I never really thought about it that way, but our laws toward gambling are extremly elitist. Seriously ok your rich and you want to gamble. You fly to Vegas or Mexico, or some expensive place. Where you can gamble to fair odds (well fair is relative, but the odds in casinos are decently fair) of winning. If your not so rich you spend you money on state lottery, where your odds are despicable, and the state keeps more than half of all winnings. Or you enter the Publishers Clearing House. Either way HEEEHEHE
I'd rather hear some DoJ flunkie making an ass of himself on CNN than pay for more $370 plastic ashtrays for non-smoking DoD cargo planes or $450 toilet seats for the johns in the Pentagon.
Besides, if enough other countries hear us bitch and moan about how we should be able to trample their laws, they'll give us the well-deserved smack in the skull we have needed since the sixties.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Are there no solutions to these trajedies?
Yes. It's called raising your threshold.
Did it occur to you that, by posting this nonsense, you are contributing to the problem?
Browser? I barely know her!
And the comment about the lottery being a "bad at math" tax is so true. Try persuading a lottery ticket buyer that they would be better off not buying a ticket, and you will hear the most vehement and irrational arguments you could imagine. These people are convinced that the small one or two matching number prizes more than pay back their investment, and that one fine day...
Of course it doesn't hurt when the state spends a big overhead of the proceeds to bombard these people with ads saying, "you can't win if you don't play," and, "it could happen to you." Someone should sue the state and spend their settlement dollars on a "the truth" series of ads comparing the odds of winning the lottery to equivalent likelihoods like, "being struck by lightning twice on the same day", "being killed by a meteorite" or, "catching AIDS from television".
"Just because we leave alcohol and tobacco poorly unregulated (for the reasons mentioned above), should we make the same mistake with gambling?"
I don't know, I feel the opposite way - I think that all of the above should be unregulated. If people want to destroy their lives by becoming crack addicts, or kill themselves slowly with cigarettes, or throw away their rent money on gambling, then they should be allowed to. It's their problem if they're too stupid/naive/gullible and/or too psychologically messed up to make choices that won't mess up their lives. As long as they don't harm me doing so, I'm not bothered.
Most smokers start smoking in school (and continue in adulthood because they're addicted), and there are generally two reasons they start: (1) it's cool to smoke, and (2) it's forbidden. If you take away (2), then (1) disappears because it wouldn't be cool anymore to smoke, since there would be no point (kids smoke to defy authority - it's natural for kids to defy authority, it's part of the adolescence phase, we can't stop that) I suspect that if you take away the "forbidden fruit" aspect of things like smoking, then most kids would think a little harder about it before they just picked up cigarettes and started smoking. (Have you ever tried to start smoking? It's not easy to start - you have to be quite motivated to put yourself through that. I tried once and I nearly threw up - I couldn't finish a single cigarette.) You have to figure out why kids are so motivated then, and remove that motivation. Much of that motivation is "smoking is not allowed, so lets do it to defy authority".
Only a tiny percentage of smokers start smoking after the age of 20. If tobacco companies can't continually recruit children, their multi-billion dollar business would die.
People either do drugs/smoking/alcohol etc because it's "forbidden fruit", or because they have psychological problems and are messed up. Regulating everything may limit the options for self-destruction that the latter group has, but it won't take away their self-destructive tendencies, and it won't solve their underlying problems. Those problems should be tackled, not the symptoms (e.g. drug addiction).
Of course, if we made it OK for kids to smoke, then there would still be the problem of advertising to kids, some of which are fairly susceptible to the influence of advertising (many of them aren't though.) I'd like to think that the solution lies partially in educating children, and partially in allowing them to make their own choices. I'd like to think that if you treat kids more like adults, then they react to that by behaving more like adults, and realising that their actions have consequences, and taking responsibility for that. If you don't teach kids to make decisions, you end up with adults who can't make decisions.
"what's the difference between illegal gambling and state-sanctioned lotteries?" The lottery isn't really gambling... its more of a tax on people who can't do math. (I think there's a bumper sticker out there that says that).
the record industry wants us to trade freedom (to copy digital files) for nothing! whereas Napster users want record companies to trade music for nothing. Hmmm...the moral high ground is still pretty low in spots.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
The internet's global, no one seens the difference between a site hosted in Ca, US and one in London, Uk for example. Just move the site offshore, and no US legislation can touch you. ( Havenco, anyone?)
That's why governments are afraid of the net, because it transcends their power. No longer is individuals at the mercy of government.
And if they make all ISPs block sites? (ignoring how costly this would be). Cryptography comes to the rescue, use freenet or ssh tunnels into offshore computers. Once something's on the net, it'll always be there.
Thanks :)
The more I research this digital music controversy the more convinced I am that the record companies do nobody any good. They're just entrenched, and the government seeing eye-to-eye with them does the people no good at all. They need to question the original motives of the laws they're going so far to protect (i.e. Copyright). The labels are just spewing mediocrity and trying to prevent alternatives.
Ben Chadwick - Editor, Zero Future/Post-Collegiate Malaise
Well, my friend, clearly you and I disagree on something.
That's not to say that I agree with even half the responses to this article. I don't. But, on the other hand, with the other responses, I have a clear idea of the reasons for the viewpoints that my peers have. I respect, read, contemplate, and maybe even change my own viewpoints based on their thoughts.
Or, I hit the reply key, and use my Vulcan logic, good keyboarding skills and brilliant intellect to attempt to make them see things from another perspective.
I'm still not sure what your perspective actually is, or how you feel that Darwinism doesn't work in a Slashdot context; therein lies my frustration.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Also, there is the perception, true or not, that the various forms of "blessed" gambling - lotteries, horse/dog racing in some states, the futures market, etc. - are more supervised by the state and "cleaner" - alledgedly less prone to fraud, cheating, and other auxilloray criminal activities, than the less regulated illegal gambling. That it's a circular argument is a whole 'nother issue.
Why do our elected officials feel it is necessary to pass laws which protect us from ourself? If someone wants to gamble away their money, that is their choice, and the only one they are potentially hurting is themself. Everybody knows that the advantage is towards the casino, and yet they make the decision to spend their money on gambling anyways, they enjoy the experience of gambling. I enjoy the experience of going to the movies, and I always leave the movie theatre with less money than I went in with. Should the government ban movies because they are clearly taking money from the public? No, the government should let the public make their own decisions on what form of entertainment they will spend their money on. Traditionally if I wanted to gamble, I would have to take a bus of a plane or drive to Vegas (or Atlantic City, or an indian reservation), the internet makes it more convenient. Gambling on the internet doesn't make it possible for me to do something I would otherwise be unable to do, it makes it more convenient for me to do it, which is a good thing.
Hey cool, maybe we can get the Xtian Coalition on board for the anti-greyhound racing initiative in Mass. Its being mostly billed as an animal welfare fight right now, but if we remind people that it's gambling too, maybe we can get a cross party thing going.
To bring this marginally on topic, another difference between casino gambling and online gambing is that the former can be social (giving casual gamblers cooler heads around them sometimes) while the latter tends not to be. Also, depending on how the online site is set up, you never have to run out of chips until you hit your credit limit. bad.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Free speech issues aside, something like this is probably in good order. Not that it will work. Legislators still do not realize that geography is somewhat meaningless in the Internet. Maybe I can't play in Atlanta from my couch, but how will I be prevented from playing in Moldavia?
As for free speech, where do you draw the line dividing the application from the expression? An online cassino seems to be an application. They are not expressing anything, except the will to part the fool from his money.
Unless you don't cooperate in going to jail, in which case, they may well opt to blow you up.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
If I were the decision maker of a small, poor country that use USD as currency, I would have encouraged those ISPs in my country to attract those business, or even start my own, targeted to the US public. Those tax revenue may be more than the current GDP.
A sig is redundant.
Indians are the only group which can legally open a casino without a single inch of red-tape (in states with legalized gambling, ie lottos etc) so they should be able to jump the loopholes on the internet just as easily, right?
"Sorry, but I don't there's anything charming about ignorance and carelessness." -LordNimon
But it's not true that "someone always does", at least not on any given night (which is how those big jackpots pile up), and when they do hit it's rarely a solo win -- this isn't the office pool, where each number is removed after it's picked.
I used to work for AmTote, and I was always grateful that I was assigned to horse-tracks and not Lotteries. Regular horse players have some clue, and there is in fact a degree of skill involved (just ask the track stewards how they pick the runners).
Once I stopped for a 6-pack after work, and stood in line (another reason to hate lotteries by the way -- the damned lines in understaffed convenience stores while some idiot looks for his list of numbers) behind a guy who wanted a ticket for "000 -- boxed" (for those of you who don't gamble, that means all the possible orderings). Anybody want to say that he knew what he was doing?
I respect any man's right to make his own mistakes, but I resent my state government making me a party to it. What the hell -- let's sell heroin while we're at it -- we can fight organized crime and fund our schools at the same time -- it's a win/win!
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
If people want to throw their money away, it's their prerogative to do so.
I don't gamble, because I know how to compute probabilities, but I'll be damned if I'd sit still for anyone dictating that decision to anyone else.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I can get the instructions for how to build an ANFO truck bomb on the web, but I can't go to loseyourmoney.com and get the instructions for how to play their games? Both are simply instructions for informational purposes only. Following them may or may not be illegal. What would someone who was researching these sites do? Get an overseas ISP? I wish the gummint would stop trying to protect the stupid from themselves.
Seriously, what's the big deal, why do authorities fear it so much? I can see regulating sports gambeling to prevent fixing games and what not, but beyond why restrict it? It's just another way for people to trade cash for entertainment. Asides from the stakes what's the moral difference between the state lottery and black jack,a church bingo match, or day trading? In all four your trading a small amount of cash for the chance to win a larger amount of cash (or some valuable prize). In all cases it comes down to luck and timing. And sometimes you win, and sometimes you loose.
;-> )
;-> But seriously does anyone know of a good legitiment reason to ban gambeling in the US? Or is congress just smoking crack again?
I know two of the biggest reasons people demonize gambeling are because of
1) Mafia involvment
2) so called gambeling "addicts"
As far as #1 goes, would the mafia be involved if it was legal, NO. Now that booze is legal again is the mafia seriously involved, NO. They only provide services alot of people want that are for some bizzare reason illegal (hmm will the mob soon be distributing MP3's - mp3.mafia.com
And for the second, does anyone actually believe that gambeling is addictive in the clinical sense of the word? I thought to be truely addicted to something you had to have a chemical dependency of some kind. Wouldn't it be more accurate to call them gambeling obsessive? Anyway people that have these kinds of personalities will always find something to latch on to that will take over their lives. Hell I have one friend who has basically ruined his life because of Evercrack, he's broke, dropped (will been kicked out of) college and was fired from his tech job because of Evercrack. Does this mean we should outlaw massivley multiplayer games? No, just because a few people take an entertaining thing way too far (ever been to a bingo hall and seen the regulars, scary) doesn't mean we have to take it away from everyone else. People who have no self control or sense of proportion deserve what they get, if they ruin their lives in the process it's their own damn fault.
I must admit that my experiance with gambeling of any kind has been limited to one trip to a bingo hall (there's two hours of my life i'll never get back) and a trip to a casino in the bahama's a couple months ago. I lost $100 playing blackjack inside of an hour. That was my gaming budget for the trip and I never went back. Quite frankly I don't see what the big deal is.
Anyway, the whole concept of a few self rightous hypocrits resticting the freedom of the rest of the country just pisses me off. I esp love that comment by Gore "...allows gambeling to invade the home" that statement makes it sound that if the US Government doesn't step in to protect us the online casino's are going to brainwash us with AOL spam and force our childern into a life of sin and indentured servitude, just like the pornographers. Why the hell does congress care how I spend my money, be it on computer parts, drugs, sex, 20 minutes of saying "hit me" "hold", or pulling the lever of a slot machine, or placing an internet bet that "lucky lady susie the swift" will place third in the first race tommorow ect... Hell it's not like they havn't already stolen their cut out of my pay before I even see it, shit they are more of a danger to my hard earned dollars than any casino, at least there I can choose what useless services to spend my money on, the Fed doesn't even give me that right.
Ok I'm done ranting now, must remember to breath.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Simple answer to a "simple" question: Your governing body doesnt get the cut they do in lotteries.
I suspect that the reason this continues is that it is actually how laywers and politicians reproduce. If the dumbasses started getting killed off by their actions, we'd start seeing fewer politicians and lawyers. On our current course, we'll eventually all be politicians or lawyers, and then the species will die out, unable to even reproduce because of the entanglement in legality that would involve.
If you don't believe that such devolution can occur, keep in mind that poodles came from wolves.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Absolutely. Let's face it, religion is about buying favors from a God that may or may not exist.
I'd like to think that whatever Supreme Being there may be, will be reasonable enough to recognize that people may eschew religion on the basis that it's more a reflection of the people who created/translated scriptures, rather than anything concrete that may have been passed down by a Deity centuries ago. If that's not the case, then, by logic, ask your family to have you buried in Bermuda shorts, cause it's gonna be mighty hot where we're *all* destined to end up.
And, if there's nothing out there, it's all for nought. At least we can thank organized religion for destroying the fun that we could have had during our one chance to experience anything for the brief respite from the eternal blackness that will be our existance after our corporal conclusion.
Value religion for its one important teaching: Live and Let Live. That's a remarkably powerful credo, and one that doesn't impose its ideals on everyone else.
Now, I can't claim to be perfectly able to live by even this one credo. No one can. Certainly, organized religion affects each of our lives every day, whether we want it to or not, and thus they're not abiding by the credo, either. But it remains a good goal for humanity: let people live as they want to live.
Instead of going to church and allowing human flaws to inevitably muddy the concept of spirituality, just live life to the fullest and value your fellow creatures.
Take the money you were going to put into the collection plate. Use it instead to take your young cousins to Disneyland. Or to buy your wife a new car. Money can't buy happiness, but material comfort sure makes happiness a much easier goal to achieve.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
"-more hypocritical (using taxes on people with poor math skills to pay for education?)"
Common people understand that the odds of winning are very low. They enjoy playing the game and the chance of winning. It's a different approach, or philosophy if you will, not poor math skills.
Heh well whats the difference between state sanctioned lotto and gambling? Well the exact same difference between maffia "protection rackets" and taxation.
ie...its "State Sanctioned".
The government just hates it when private citizens try to "muscle in" on their "turf" you know.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The government gets bigger and bigger every day, eroding away more and more of our rights. Why can't someone tell me why can't the government just let us do whatever we want to do as long as we're not infringing on anyone else's right to life, liberty, or property?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Similarly, it should be illegal to transfer network data which carries out illegal activity into the US. There is no difference between bringing drugs into the US and replying to network traffic which is requesting to place illegal bets into to the US
So, then, speedy, how do you want to handle MP3s, VCDs, warez, etc ad nauseam? Set up government FBI monitoring stations with absolute authority, and ban encryption? If transferring illegal content is the responsibilty of the ISP as you state, then there is going to be no more internet. Do you know what "common carrier" means? This isn't just about illegal gaming, which was my point! What's next, the list of mp3 servers and warez sites? How do you propose law enforcement determine what is illegal? Or who is accessing it?
I am under no obligation to check to see if when you order something it is legal in YOUR country. That is YOUR responsibility. I'll take your money and ship it. If it's legal in my country, it's not my problem. Since YOU are the person in the US, this is YOUR problem. American law stops at the border. If drugs are legal in amsterdam, I could ship you pot - it wouldn't be illegal for me to mail it (subject to the local laws). It is illegal for you to pick it up. Because you're in the US. Likewise, it would be legal for you to buy and fly back - the ILLEGAL part happens when you enter american territory.
I most certainly "get it". That's why I didn't move to the US like all of my friends after they graduated.
..don't panic
The difference is pork. The other green meat.
[|]
Why pass laws that aren't going to have an effect, or have little/no hope of serving there intended purpose?
I can answer that one: (1) to be seen as doing something, or (2) to satisfy some group of campaign donors. A politician can stand before the voters and say, "I sponsored a bill to end the scourge of [Online Gambling | Child Porn | Cotton in Aspirin Bottles | The Concern Of The Moment]. He can also tell some pressure group that he's done something about whatever the hell it is that puches their buttons. It's done all the time, and for just these cynical reasons. Of course, there are some zealots who actually believe in what they're pushing, but I think most of the politicos who vote for measures like these are just using it as window-dressing for election time, or so they can tell their campaign donors that they've done something for them.
> There will be complaints from many of you that
> this bill is ill-conceived and impractical. I
> think that it's far more important that
> something be done about the sin and
> family-destroying habit of gambling.
Even if "something" is at best an empty and ineffective gesture?
If history has shown one thing, it is this...if a large group of people want something, then it is impossible to stop them from getting it.
Look at alcohol prohibition of the 1920s. Some people felt it important to "Do something about the sin and fammily-destroying habit of..." drinking alcohol.
The problem: The masses want to drink alcohol.
The result: Criminal elements provide alcohol. Unregulated black markets spring up, bringing violent turf wars and all the associated ills of the black market with them.
Access to alcohol becomes easier for children, who previously couldn't get it...so much so that entire schools had to be closed down due to mass student drunkeness!
Is this an isolated subject? The SAME scenario is happening this very day under the name "The War on Drugs". Should we expect gambling to be any different?
Face it...the unwashed masses (or at least a large enough percentage of them) WANT to gamble. ALL you can do is try to reduce the harm associated with gambling by letting them do it legally, and try to educate them about gambling and its dangers. Anything else simply makes the situation worst.
Of course...this is a lesson that our society has yet to actually learn. Maybe someday it will sink in that you can't just hand down rules from on high and have society suddenly change fundamentally to respect these new rules.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Here in VIRGINIA.. the lottery was supposed to go to education..
Then why did we have a huge debate in our government on where to spend the money and our governor had to step up and pony the money to education and not other interests..
How do you sue your state for failing to keep thier lottery promises?
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
There is one very big distinction. The proceeds of a state lottery go to the state government for various things (that's what I hear), which lowers state taxes.
Also there's that 'government wants monopoly on ____' reason...
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
...which has been striking down just about every stupid federal law enacted by a congress who severely overreaches their powers in apssing them, like this law. Just wait for the first free-speech lawsuit - and believe me, with this much money at stake, there will be tons.
--Hail Mary, for she has the largest shotgun of them all.--
The Mafia is not involved in businesses because they are illegal.
The underworld is not a sucker for punishment.
Instead, the underworld is so greedy that they ignore laws in a organized manner. Gambling, drugs, prostitution will always be used to finance moves by the underworld.
These businesses are easy to exploit for huge profits, if you do not care what happens to the customer.
If you had ever visited a addiction recovery group, you would not be so callous.
The legal status of gambling is determined by location. It is legal in Nevada, Atlantic City, reservation casinos.... Even if act of Gambling is illegal, hosting a website is not. States want to do away with online gambling so the working poor will turn to "crack for the statistically challenged", also known as the lottery, to provde a chance for escape.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
This is just another example of politicians commanding the tides to recede. Anonymizer/encryption services like ZeroKnowledge Systems Freedom make any attempts to bar access to certain sites futile. The hosting servers for the gambling sites are generally outside U.S. jurisdiction. Even if the U.S. were to pressure the hosting countries to block U.S. users, anonymous proxies operating outside the U.S. (Freedom is a specialized example of one of these) would make it impossible to know where their user is coming from. I suppose this sort of legislation is harmless, but it would be better if the authors of these bills devoted their time to real problems.
It has been said before, and it still holds: The lottery is a tax on stupidity.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Whats really sad is how the PA state lottery is actualy losing money! Right after they announced an audit the head guy resigned.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Actually they are, notice that since we repealed the Volstead act the Mob has almost no hand in the production or distribution of alchohol, they simply can't compete with legitiment businesses (at least not at the level of profit they are used to) The Mafia's business model has always been to use violence (or the threat of) to become the monopoly supplier of some illegal good that people still demmand.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
It would be nice if this were true, but the sad fact is that its not. Even though money from the lottery is earmarked for certain items like education the money that education was originally getting is not dedicated in the same way. This means that when the budget is made, lottery money is used for education, and their normal budget is reduced by a corresponding amount.
My only beef with it is that they promote the lottery as a way of getting rich. They should have to do some public service messages saying how much more likely it is to make you poor.
Maybe that is where they could spend the money that they make from the lottery.
t
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Why not ban all advertising on cruise ships that have gabling?
There is a simpler solution that is already being implemented. Don't require payment of gambling debts on credit cards. There has been a couple of court cases where the charges for these on-line gambling sites been reversed. If they can't get paid for people who lose money on their sites, they will have an incentive to control themselfs.
Fight Spammers!
The difference is simple: "illegal" gambling allows an individual to become wealthy through the stupidity of others, whereas state-sanctioned lotteries ensure that money lost by idiots goes to the state.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
When the huge pockets of the gaming industry combining forces with the vocal minority of the religious right, online gambling is doomed. ParadisePoker.com is one of the best web sites on the net. It provides fun, legit poker tables 24/7 and thousands of people have made the decision to play there. Amazon.com has taken in millions of dollars by saving people the 10 minute drive to the book store. Why can't gambling sites make millions by saving people the long and expensive trips to Casinos?
-B
What do I know about this, wel I run the servers for a British betting site Totalbet and US law poses a significant problem to us even though Totalbet is in the UK, registered in the UK, and owned by well established UK companies like The Tote and SportingLife. Thankfully similar laws against betting are unlikely to happen in the UK since the government here aren't likely to pass laws against themselves. Yes, you did interpret that correctly, the UK Government own a betting organistaion, one of the publicly owned industries. Whilst other betting organistaions are free to ignore the US laws, unless the US govt. gets stroppy and starts demanding extradition and suchlike, we have to stay squeaky clean. When we start accepting foreign cards, probably later this year, and start running foreign markets I will have to start blocking the US at my routers which is a complete PITA. It seems to me that the US govt. has not yet learned from the fiasco that was prohibition. The genuine betting organisations do have a genuine concern about people getting addicted to gambling. If the company in it for the long run, this is a Very Bad Thing. The banks are also paranoid about it which is why we only accept debit cards at the moment (so you can only spend money you actually have, and not run up debts). It seems to me that US citizens will just try to get around any blocking or laws which means I will have to spend time trying to stop them, spending some of my cunning trying to stop otherwise perfectly legitimate customers, when I should be making the site better. (If you are in the UK, look out for Totalbet on interactive digital TV and WAP) I suspect that the anti internet gambling laws in the US will go the same way the prohibition did, being repealed, eventually. Someone in the US really needs to bring balance to the force, preferably without emulating Al Capone in the process.
Note: I speak only for myself, not Totalbet, The Tote, SportingLife or anyone else.
I think that people buy lottery tickets in pretty good conscience because it's going for a good cause, it's legal, and there's a tiny little itty-bitty chance that they may get rich. Considering all that, it's not all that bad after all. If they promote it as a way to get rich, it's because they are catering to a very basic human nature: greed. You could always count on people to be greedy. This is one thing that I think may never change. After all, isn't that the foundation of Capitalism?
What determines offensive material is covered in the broadcasting code of practice and the take down notices are only issued after public complaint.
In short the legislation is ineffective, it doesn't stop anyone looking at porn or other "offensive" material, all it means is you can't host that stuff in machines in this country. Effectivly it took a large amount of money from Australian web hosting firms as porn providers took the material to the US or Asia or Europe.
So is this poece of legislation which targets individual sites and limits what people can do on the net (not to mention the taxation dollars it is taking from governments as its citizens gamble in foreign lands)?
As far as religion, I would say I don't think religion has anything to do with gambling. If your religion prohibits you from gambling, that's great for you, but that doesn't affect me. The government will never pass laws against gambling because of religion, because that's unconstitutional. The only way your religion can get laws passed to outlaw religion is through the machinery of democracy and the persistence of your religion - meaning, if your religion became the dominant religion in the country, and everyone in your religion votes to outlaw gambling. I'd be willing to accept that, but to directly say that because gambling is against your religion and therefore it offends you, I say, so what? What I do is my business. If I offend you, tough. As long as I don't break any laws, I don't see it as a problem.
OBTW: Last time I checked though, it was a favorite dodge of cruise lines to start a cruise, sail into international waters, and then fire up the blackjack tables.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Is gambling a sin according to christianity? I can see how it could be construed as stealing, but its a debateable point.
My grandparents spent $1 per week. They are not gambling people, they just figure that 1 chance in hundreds of millions is better than none, and no harm done. Hey, that's their peculiarity. Besides, they were hoping to win the lotto for their children and grandchildren. I know there are better ways, but this is just their way of "gambling"
In the UK, the bet is deemed to be placed at the servers location, specifically the server that does the financial transaction. However, the US govt. has, in the past, felt that it is perfectly entitled to pressurise foreign governments. the Totalbet servers are in London, but we are still not allowed to accept US bets.
You know the idea, you don't appreciate something until it's gone. You don't know sweetness until you've tasted the bitter. American enjoy gambling that much more because throughout most of the country, it is illegal. Isn't it great?
If I did my research correctly, this is bill number H. R. 3125. Go to the Thomas site at the Library of Congress and enter that in as a search parameter.
--The basis of all love is respect
Simply, if you don't like gambling, don't do it.
Yeah, and people who don't like smoking should just stop.
And people who are just desparate for their next fix, spending their welfare dollars on crack should just stop.
It's an addiction for people. Even if they know it's stupid, they can't stop.
While I agree with your sentiment on some things, sometimes people do need to be protected from themselves.
Unless you like a relentlessly darwinistic sort of society. In that case, maybe you think we should get rid of welfare, medicare, and the rest.
The weak, and the dumb, and the addicted, and the suicidally hopeless can just suffer or die. After all, we wouldn't want to interfere with anyone's freedom, would we?
Personally, I don't like the idea. Sometimes, imposing morals on people is good for them. What do you think laws are, anyway?
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Okay. Then, by your numbers, 30% of all men in Hong Kong are stupid. You said it, not me.
Listen, I think gambling is about the best way of wasting your money that exists on the face of this earth. (Short of buying Metallica CDs.)
Now, whether or not gambling is addictive isn't my concern. I just really don't like the idea of setting the precedent that government knows more than individuals. Somewhere, shortly after crossing that line, you also cross the line dividing a government that serves the people from a people that serve the government.
As for your moral objections to gambling, while you feel that gambling is repugnant, I feel that imposing your morals on others is at least equally repugnant. Not everybody feels that gambling is evil and nasty. If people are stupid enough to want to gamble, and can't control their impulses to wager money, too bad. That's their problem.
Simply, if you don't like gambling, don't do it.
A good parallel would be the Howard Stern Radio Show. Many people would love to see Howard Stern legislated from the airwaves. That's incredibly dangerous, because that legislation actually erodes freedom of speech. A better solution, if you don't like Stern, is just not to tune the radio to any station that airs the Howard Stern show. If enough people do it, the capitalist system will serve as a great controlling body: the ratings will drop and the show will be cancelled. All without writing your Congressman with dangerous ideas that would restrict one of the most important rights in free countries.
I did notice your "family-destroying" description of gambling. I'd suggest that any family "destroyed" by gambling was broken anyway. Further, the use of "family-destroying" as an adjective conjures up images of various representatives of the Christian Right banging on my door and attempting to impose their morals on me or to entice me to go to church.
Ever have a bus full of Baptists stop in your driveway to try to pick up one more before going to the church? The line that was supposed to sell me on going to church was "We need good folk to help stop abortions".
Now, I think abortions are pretty nasty, and that there are usually valid alternatives (like adoption, or simply planning ahead), but I also don't want the government's fingers in any more pies (Bad enough they got a low-flush toilet into my house). Nor do I want to restrict the freedom of others. My response was simply, "Don't like abortions? Then don't have one!" Then I told them if their bus wasn't removed from my driveway in under 30 seconds, I'd have them cited for trespassing, and slammed the door.
Come on, man, it was a Sunday morning. I was sleeping off a long night of playing with my new DSL connection! Isn't the prime concept of Christianity to "do unto others", essentially to live and let live?
Don't like internet gambling? Then don't do it. Don't like pornography? Then don't buy it. Don't like homosexuality? Then don't go to gay bars. Don't like being unceremoniously told were you can shove your morals? Then don't attempt to impose them on others.
Love thy neighbor. Don't always agree with him/her, but don't always harass him/her. And give him/her the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making decisions.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
of course, it doesnt work, and people go elsewhere, so then said agents request a ban like this one...
Sorry, couldn't resist...
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
are you saying that poor people are inherently stupid?
Have you seen Ironstayn vs Supergovernment yet?
Hee hee, that's an interesting take on it. My question has always been, if I spend X dollars a year, what are the odds of me winning more then X dollars on the lotto?
(Yeah, I know the answer tends towards zero, but, I really do wanna see the odds :)
Actually, in my state they yanked a lot of pay phones all over the place as a result of drug-dealers. Bastards, now I have to either own a cell-phone I don't want or go wandering around aimlessly in less than favorable neighborhoods to call somebody if I'm in need of help... Its a pretty stupid system...
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
Education imparts information and knowledge, but at the same time implicitly enforces conformity. Is conformity good? To a large extent, yes. It means that the society is more efficient, is more united and less likely to segregate into subgroups, and therefore less likely to have social problems. Is conformity dangerous? Absolutely. Too much conformity leads to a general apathetic social attitude.
From my perspective, society is dangerously apathetic. I mean, half of society doesn't vote and most of the other half votes on the basis of vague or misleading TV ads.
Unity and efficiency have no inherent value. Unity should be achieved through discussion and debate. Achieviving unity through twelve years of behaviour modification is a bad idea. Conditioning can encourage certain behaviours, but it cannot instill a rational basis for those behaviours. Teaching kids under duress does more damage than good.
I've reread your post, and you make statements like "For the most part I think people will agree more education is better than less education in our society.." I think you assume that if something is called education, then it is good, and more is better. But there are many ways to educate. Using behaviour modification is a bad way to educate.
[Educations] chief goal is about integration...
I think children naturally integrate into society. I don't think they need to be isolated, segregated, organized, and punished/rewarded into it.
I agree that mass marketing and growing corporate power is potentially dangerous. But certainly not as dangerous as an education system that fails to teach us to think critically. Critical thought is an essential tool in making sense of things. Ever wonder why public schools don't teach it? In other words, the fact that we are so vulnerable to mass marketing is a major failure of the education system.
In a democracy, deliberately homogenizing the intellect of the masses seems to me to be an act of political manipulation. By controlling what and how society at large thinks, and by instilling in them common assumptions that suit the your purposes, you gain the ability to loosely control or steer a democracy.
Corporatism vs Education: Corporations have the power to permeate manipulative propaganda throughout society. The government OTOH has twelve years of legally obliged access to future voters/consumers while they are young and vulnerable. I think the two work in tandem. (Fuzzy voting advertisements only work because society is easily manipulated due to poor education. Same with Disney ads.)
Which problem is larger is therfore not relevant. I believe that if we 'fix' the education system, we will simultaneously weaken the power of propaganda.
What happens when they start to block access or write laws banning other sites? If you read the article, there is a quote on how difficult it will be to block access to overseas sites, as they can change their IPs. This law could easily be a ban on sexually explicit sites, claiming that "Its not making anything legal that was illegal, or making anything illegal that was legal." One photo that could be called "degrading to women" and the site is legally obscene. Where does it go from there? Once a government controlled IP blocking system is in place, its a slippery slope. Could Metallica go into a court with a friendly judge and get an immediate cease and desist order with the site being blocked a few hours later? "Cyber Patrol - Government edition"
The value of unity and efficiency is merely in making the society more efficient and stronger. From a nationalistic point of view (just beginning to be eroded toward obsoletion in today's Internet globalization), unity and efficiency is very important. More so in the U.S., because it is composed of people from such disparate backgrounds and nationalities. Other than that, I guess you're right.
I think you assume that if something is called education, then it is good, and more is better. But there are many ways to educate. Using behaviour modification is a bad way to educate.
I guess this depends on our definitions of education. By education, I mean anything that would enable learning - be it skills, knowledge, or anything else. Behavior modification? yeah, more or less, our behaviors DO get modified in education. But our behaviors are modified by everything around us. Our environment, our friends and family, TV, school, they are all powerful influences. The only way to make sure that education's behavior modification doesn't dominate is to dominate with something else - family. If you don't want any behavioral modification from a government backed system, you can. You'd just have to more or less isolate your children from other children and educate them yourself at home.
I think children naturally integrate into society. I don't think they need to be isolated, segregated, organized, and punished/rewarded into it.
This one, I have to disagree with. Children don't naturally integrate into society unless they learn the common basis of knowledge that systematic education provides. If they don't, then they will definitely be isolated, segregated, etc., because they will be "different". Not that it's ok anyway. But on this one, maybe it's again more of our lack of agreement on terminology.
By the way, I personally think that the "real" education starts at college. That is, I still hold firm to the belief that the twelve years of pre-college education is intended to homogenize, to teach us some skills, but mostly, how to communicate effectively and become a useful part of society. The government, acting as an extension of the people's will (albeit bias towards people with money) wants the people it governs to be cohesive. After all, the government depends on the people, and if the people are not united and cohesive, the society falls apart and the government topples, good or bad. I believe that it is in college that "differentiation" occurs. It is in college that we are truly taught to think critically. Do I agree with it? Not necessarily, I just think that it happens that way. Although I think very often, some children are treated to this at an earlier stage. The high school I went to was certainly like this (though I'm not saying it was successful in my case). A lot of the kids were very, very mature and independent, very purposeful, very bright. They made up their minds and are not at all afraid of being different or outspoken.
We must also realize that whether we like it or not, our society, through its educational system acting as a sieve, segregates children based on their abilities and achievements. We (the society) unconsciously (or consciously) believe that this is necessary so that we can fill the roles in our society with "suitable" candidates. That's why in education and academia, we govern by meritocracy. When this shows great disparities and people screams about lack of fairness, we perform educational welfare and promote mediocrity.
So the question is this: what's more important? The individual or the society? Both are important, but when thinking about ourselves, the individuals are more important. When thinking of others, society is more important. Behavioral modification is great when it keeps the society running smoothly but not when it comes to ourselves. Then it becomes dangerous and unreasonable.
Gee, I wish I made more sense above, but I hope you get what I'm trying to get at. Basically, the education system is the way it is because we (as a group, not as individuals) want it and need it that way. Like it or not, educational system aims at homogenization. Like it or not, the results (high school graduation) of the educational system is purposefully used to segregate the children as they are inducted into society. Like it or not, college is where we truly begin to learn how to "think", as I believe.
Change it slightly. You are a dutch coffee shop owner. You sell some marijuana to some americans, and they get in trouble for it later, such as forgetting to empty their pockets before getting on the plane home. Now the FBI/DEA now have a dossier on you as a drug dealer.
What you have done is legal in the Netherlands, and what the americans did at the time was legal, lighting up in your coffee shop. What the americans did later was stupid and illegal.
Next time you set foot in the US, you are facing 10 years or more in a US prison.
I type this because I know one person this has happened, he gets released next year after the Dutch government brought pressure on the US. He'll have served 9 years in prison, even though he never sold drugs in the US. The idiots he sold to each got 25 years, and just got paroled after 10.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
When is the damn Congress going to realize that they're throwing away civil rights on the Internet? First off, they shouldn't have a right to censor anything. Second, they definitely shouldn't have a right to censor the Internet since it is international. Last, if they are going to try to censor the Internet with their own "American" laws, then should have to follow the laws setup by the constitution and the amendments! If they did this to the American society (as apposed to the Internet society) they would be stopped or thrown out of office come next election but you see nothing of the sorts now.
I don't think the American government truly understands that this is another society. Heck, even most of the American public don't realize that. People are tired of American politics where the minority now rules and money and the media dictates our laws. The Internet is a whole different society and if the senate wants to try to get involved with it, then they should follow the same civil liberties that they (i.e., the Senate in general) setup in the constitution.
Ummmm, no.
As a non-american who has to work regularly in the US, I can tell you that if havenco starts breaking american laws, their american employees have two choices:
- get a good lawyer before setting foot in the US again
- never leave havenco until they die
The US also regularly prosecutes non-americans for crimes committed outside of the US. Mostly its drugs and tax dodging. Gambling will be a large enough issue to get included on the hot list.
Once they get their hands on you, expect a long stay at their expense.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
It's because America is the land of freedom.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Illegal gambling provides MUCH better odds of winning.
-LjM
"Not much, occasionally there is a winner, but you have a much greater chance of losing."
Exactly, state regulation prevents that gambling gets too popular.In addition, the profits are a welcome addition to the state's income.
Gambling works really simple, as people are generally to stupid to realize that they are more likely to lose money than to win money when gambling running a gambling operation is really profitable. It gets more profitable when more people start to gamble. How do you get more people to gamble: you raise the possibility that they might win or you increase the amount of money that they get in the unlikely case that they win.
State regulation makes it possible to prevent that to many idiots lose their wages.
So that's the difference, or at least the underlying theory because in practice governments are to greedy to regulate in a proper way.
In either case, since I don't gamble, I prefer state regulation because that ultimately lowers the amount of tax I need to pay and maybe helps address some social problems as well. It's a win win situation either way.
Jilles
Oh no, i was speaking about how darwin's not working in terms of regulation of the net.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
And if it's said by a politician, it must be true...
First off, you mis-spelled "tragedies". Since the "g" and the "j" key are separated by the "h" (unless you're one of the 0.001% of the population using a Dvorak keyboard), I can't help but assume it to be a spelling error, as opposed to a mistyped word. Nor is "trajedy" a common British, Aussie or Canadian spelling; and the rest of your composition skills suggest that your first language is probably English. I realize the reply before mine addressed this issue, but I felt it to be a worthwhile issue for you to consider.
More pressingly, however, I am concerned about the content of your posting. No definate point was actually made, it was simply an expression of vaguely-directed displeasure.
Perhaps you're missing the concept upon which Slashdot seems to operate: a source of intelligent discourse among those of us who are either professionals in the IT field or are highly advanced computer users.
We agree, we disagree, we bicker, we moan.
Far be it for me to say I've never called someone on Slashdot an idiot: my personality is far more aggressive and volatile than to be able to contain that. I tell people what I think of them. But, on the other hand, I don't think I've ever called someone an idiot simply because I disagreed with them. I've called them idiots either because their arguments for/against a specific position were weak or ill-informed, not because they disagreed with me.
And I fear that this is specifically the reason why you feel uncomfortable with your fellow Slashdot fans. I'm sorry if that's the case. I like to consider myself to be reasonably intelligent; even so, a few of the individuals you call "idiots" have helped me to see things from a different viewpoint, and have even, on occasion, managed to change my opinions.
The suggestion of genocide against the idiots of the world is significantly more ominous, since innocent people will always be swept up in any attempt. A better solution is a hands-off approach in policy and legislation. Let Darwin's theory do its job. There's no need to lift a finger to kill off the idiots: they'll be gone, soon enough, with no intervention. In fact, intervention tends to backfire and propagate the species.
Finally, shared knowledge is what it's all about. Open-source, if you will. There will always be idiots. But Slashdot's signal-to-noise ratio is just about the best on the 'Net.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Education a 'good cause'?
The structure of our education system produces subordinate conformists, and discourages critical/creative thought. It's obedience training in a socially palatable form. It's social engineering on a grand scale. Do you want YOUR children socially engineered by the gov't?
I don't.
Here's a portion of a letter I've been passing around to the kids in my neighborhood...
That aside, I have no doubt that the money from the NY Lottery goes to education. But where does the money that originally went to education go? Has the budget been lowered by an amount equal to the amount coming from the lottery?
I can't speak for all states, but I do know it has happened in many of them. The net effect the lottery has had on education has been 0, and the real money has ended up somewhere else.
t
I wish they'd bothered to realize that online gambling will never pose any real threat to their existance.
Online gambling *is* a threat to their existence. Bear in mind Nevada has very little natural resources. It is freaking dessert! To spur the economy Nevada, the goverment made gambling legal. At that time, gambling is illegal in almost everywhere in America. By having an exclusive rights to gambling (relative to other American states), Nevada makes huge profits. If other states are allowed to gamble as much as Nevada, I am willing to bet (pun intended) that Las Vegas will not be as popular as it is today.
Another example, a few years back, Windsor's casinos are causing Detroit residents to step into Canada to gamble away their money. The Detroit mayor at that time wanted to allow detroit-based casino so Detroit residents can gamble it away in their own city.
Hasdi
My first point:
You don't have to ban ISP's, just make any debt accrued by online gambling uncollectable. If you make it illegal for Visa to collect payment for a gambling debt then you make it that much harder for a casino to make money.
Point 2:
With the online sites does anyone know the odds of winning at a particular game? Do those sites stack the decks to control the odds? Nevada has inspectors because - historically - grifters weren't the only ones to fix games. If you go to an online site - especially if it's offshore - it seems unlikely that it's regulated.
Point 3:
I remember reading an article in National Geographic about cocain. Apparently only 5 percent of users allow the habit to control them. With gambling the addiction rates can be higher. Doesn't that make it more dangerous?
IMHO, as per
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
They're all over the place. Little laws you never give any thought that haven't been challenged yet or are too 'insignificant' to bother with. Every person breaks several laws every week, they're just never caught and prosecuted.
Another way to look at this is that it just gives the cops a reason to hold you. If they can't get any real dirt on you they can always dig something up that no one ever gets charged with, but hey, it's the law!
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
I'm so ashamed - I'll never stop at Starbuck's on my lunch break again...
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
If people had personal goals they wouldn't be making more humans. Making babies is a collectivist goal. I'm not talking about the activity so much as where it originates. But that's beside the point. You want to shut down gambling because it "kills people" (hint: this refers metaphorically to guns)? How about ending this self-guilt bullshit and allowing people the freedoms and self-respect they earn by being responsible? How about not SHUTTING DOWN BEFORE A TRIAL? How about the over loaded judicial system taking some responsibility and choosing NOT to HEAR petty cases? They have the constitutional power to do that. I absolutely agree with it.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
You just know that on-line gambling is totally dodgy. Anyone who would gamble on-line is lacking serious clue.
That's the whole point!
If you fall for it, it's your own damn fault. If you want to take that chance, go for it. The last thing I want is another law protecting me from myself! I am an adult, and I make my own decisions. By the same token, I accept responsibility for my actions.
Americans don't need the Government to babysit us!
Browser? I barely know her!
Nope.. Havenco is not located in the US, is not incorporated in the US, and is not subject to US laws, no matter what the FBI, CIA and MPAA have lead you to believe. There is no extradition or treaty of lawful effect between the US and the Principality of Sealand. Also, most investors are assisted by laws that say in effect 'You can't lose more than you invested'.
All law enforcement can do is bitch and moan.
"Poor us! We can't go pushing around foreign citizens anymore.. Guess it's time to invade some backward Central American nation like we did back in the good old days"
.sig: Now legally binding!
does this mean that they will block out forein gambling sites such ones from up here in canada?
I was a software developer for the gambling industry, and I believe probably the biggest difference in state sanctioned vs illegal gambling is probably odds manipulation. Typically the people running gambling are not exactly honest people (after all, they do make a living preying on the fact that people want to make money for nothing, sorta like dot-com companies).
The point is, without regulation its easy to pull the old "Which hand am I holding the coin in" trick. Make the odds look good, but really just take money. This is only really helpfull when you can pull a fast one, like give out a big prize that everyone can see, give it a large deal of publicity and then lower the odds without anyone knowing. Everyone shows up because you are giving out the big prizes, but low and behold you are just taking their money.
This is highly regulated in Las Vegas (Vegas is a highly honest gambling community, by far the most upstanding group of casino's I've ever seen) and in state sanctioned lotteries. But if gambling on the internet isn't regulated, then no one can stop these scams from happening to the average user (the person who thinks "Vegas is regulated so this place must be").
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
Your "solution" is just as bad as the disease. If I use my credit card to pay for something, I should be liable for the debt, period. If I want to gamble it all away over the Internet, there's no reason in the world I shouldn't.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I'm going to go buy property in Aruba and set up a nice little proxy server (with a nice FAT pipe) that people can log into & surf to anywhere from.... If internet gambling is a billion dollar industry and growing, this should be fairly easy to pull off.
And, the kicker is, since my company would be in Aruba, it would not be subject to the laws of the United States.
If this bill passes, how long until these are popping up in droves?
Scott
The lottery/gambling is incredibly exploitative of the poor, who can't afford it as much and are more subject to the myth that you can make money gambling. Online Gambling is much more socially justifiable when you consider that poor folks generally ain't on the Internet. If they're going to outlaw something, they should outlaw gambling as a business!
(I especially hate slot machines.)
(I feel like I'm just rehashing my comments from the online voting section, but I apologize. I just get mad hearing about how many hicks have been bankrupted by video poker machines in convenience stores in South Carolina, etc. etc. etc.)
Ben Chadwick - Editor, Zero Future/Post-Collegiate Malaise
Ban? It's sipmle.
Should an ISP be required to 'block' access to foreign sites? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Just because some guy put a gambling site on the internet somewhere should not put *any* obligation on an unrelated ISP.
Should an ISP be allowed to host gambling sites within the US? OF course not! not if it's illegal!
Easy. Most people can't stand to see other people live differently. In a democratic society you get a unique opportunity to put a stop to it, namely by electing officials who will make whatever you don't like illegal.
Look at the USCongress: the various parties differ primarily in what they want to make illegal.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm afraid that they might one day eventually get to shutting down http://www.goatse.cx down. I'll miss sending people there and seeing their disgusted faces.
witty sig goes here
When I work and get paid - I get taxed.
When I buy something at the store - I get taxed.
so - they tax me coming and going. This is rediculous.
if they want to tax on-line gambling - they should ONLY tax the gambling site. here is how it would work:
gamble.com registers for a license.
users buy gambling credits at gamble.com (or any other gambling site) and spend them on games - tickets etc.
each day/week/month (prior to any payouts) the money that is collected on any given game gets taxed - based on its amount.
The money that is left is used to pay the odds on the payout - and the rest is profit for the site.
- or something like that -
or - the other option - cival disobedience. I get taxed on the money I make already - thats enough. I will not pay any taxes for any other thing. they already take 48% of my damn income... but when you add in all the other taxes - its more like 60%+
Actually, anyone with a minimum of mathematical knowledge should know better than to gamble and play the lottery.
Grrrr.. I hate Politcal Correctness because of how ugly it has made it to write english, much less say something without offending someone.
I heard a radio commercial asking people to contact their congressbeing to combat the insidious eeeevil of internet gambling.
Congressbeing?? Is that like a divine entity or something? WTF?!?!?!
Ok people.. simple solution. If you are a male, use a masculine pronoun. IE him, his, congressman. If you are a female, use a feminine pronoun. IE her, hers, congresswoman (or man if you're lazy). If you don't know what you are, then damnit, you shouldn't be here.
</rant>Thank you for your time.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Illegal gambling: profits go to criminals
If it wasn't illegal, they wouldn't be criminals.
who use it for their OWN advantage
And this is different from any other business becuase...?
How can the US ban something on a medium that quite frankly has no boundry?
I've been to plenty of gambling sites and have seen no nude women or porn.
there is an interesting statistic on the odds of winning the lottery vs. being struck by lightning here
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
"get your discount lotto tickets right here, 1/2 price and only 1/100,000,000% less chance of winning than full-fare tickets"
"I'll take one!"
"here"
"Hey, wait, these are from yesteday's drawing!"
(apologies to Scott Adams as I no doubtedly mangles a very funny comic)
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I suspect that they did. When my credit card number was stolen, the credit card company didn't care. They charged it back to the merchant. The merchant didn't press charges because it was not worth it to them.
Fight Spammers!
To carry your analogy forward, it's like congress banning AK-47's in South Africa
... Did you read the article?
I actually think that my analogy would be that people with AK-47's couldn't ship them to Americans who tried to buy them. The guns would be stopped and seized at customs. End of story.
Well, there everything's settled. If an American wants to feel what it's like to own an AK-47, they need to go where it's legal to buy one.
Just as if a site is in a the US, they can't take bets.
If the site is not in the juristiction of the US, there's nothing that the US can do about it. It's that simple. The article I read seemed to be mainly centered on US based sites (either companies based in the US or hosted by US companies), because they're the only ones that can be governed by a bill passed in the US.
Again, if you don't like the laws, there are options where you can continue what you'd be doing without actually breaking the laws.
THIS ISN'T ABOUT AMERICAN SITES.
GO re-read the article. It is very specific in mentioning american sites, and uses analogies such as "picking up the phone in one state and placing a bet in another state".
They're not trying to outlaw international gambling. They're just making US residents (consumers and business owners alike) abide by US laws. End of story.
I wish I had a mod point for this one...
Browser? I barely know her!
So the reason we gamble is poor math skills, and the reason we have poor math skill is we haven't gambled enough to improve the schools :)
In either case, since I don't gamble, I prefer state regulation because that ultimately lowers the amount of tax I need to pay and maybe helps address some social problems as well. It's a win win situation either way.
In California, part of the lottery profits go toward education (they had to promise that in order to get the thing passed). As lottery profits went up, other state contributions to education went down. The California educational system now consistently rates at the bottom in most categories ($/student, class size, etc, etc).
Well first of, burning a $100 bill costs more than $1, and I doubt going to a casino would be much fun (or at all possible) for $1. That said, how do you know how much fun they have at doing certain activities? I don't like golf, but that doesn't mean everyone who plays golf is bad at math because they could be doing something (which I consider to be) more fun for less money. Maybe they just like playing the lottery. Who cares?
What about blocking commercials on cruise ships? How about outlawing any movie with gambling?
There is a simpler solution that is already being implemented. Don't require payment of gambling debts on credit cards. There has been a couple of court cases where the credit card charges for these on-line gambling sites been reversed. If they can't get paid for people who lose money on their sites, they will have an incentive to ontrol themselves.
I have a real problem when the government or corporation dictates what I can or cannot read.
Fight Spammers!
If there were a tax on stupidity, the government would be PAYING all of us!
It's laws like this that are dangerous because they don't go after the criminal, they attempt to change everyone's behaviour to _prevent_ something that you shouldn't be doing.
"Speeding is illegal, so let's ban freeways!"
"Armed robbery is illegal, so let's take everyone's guns!"
They're not making blanket statements like that. They're saying "online gambling's illegal, so let's ban online casino's". It's a direct cause and effect sort of thing, like saying that "automatic weapons are illegal, so let's ban automatic weapons"... Restating the obvious.
It's the guy that's actually doing the gaming that's breaking the laws, so go after him!
It's not just the person that's making bets that's breaking the law, it's the person that's taking them as well. It also doesn't appear that there's any provision for suing the company "hosting" the website, as opposed to the company that's "operating" it. There's a distinction there.
What's the difference between going to the carribean and blowing your dollars there, and blowing them via an online route?
The difference is just that: you have to leave the country, or at least go to specific areas of the country where gambling is allowed in order to gamble. They're not going after Vegas, Atlantic City, or any of the Indian reservations. They're going after companies that operate outside of thsoe strict confines.
Unlike a lot of other industries, gambling has proven that it really needs to be monitored and regulated... The amounts of money make/made it a very large and lucrative target for organized crime and swindlers. Who do you think is running those sites? I'm not say they're definitely crooked, but you have to wonder, don't you?
Not everything is the issue slashdot cracks it up to be... There is no free speech issue associated with the barring of gambling sites and fining the operators of those sites if they accept wagers from Americans. If you don't like the laws here, just leave....
(preparing for flames due to that sentence)
But you could say the same thing about drugs. It's virtually impossible to eliminate drugs and people are going to use drugs even though they are clearly illegal. However, no one says anything when they make laws banning drugs. But people get all worked up about gambling.
You can't tell me that gambling and drugs are very different for a few reasons.
1) People who are addicted to gambling go gambling to 'get their fix', just like addicts.
2) There are tons of casual gamblers, just like there are tons of casual drug users.
3) There are many drugs that are legal (alcohol, cigaretts, nitrous oxide, etc...) just like there are forms of gambling that are legal and forms that are illegal.
4) Gambling addiction leads to just about the same problems that drug addiction does. Loss of money, family, possible even life.
5) There are plently of places you can go to get help with your gambling addiction just like there are for drugs and alcohol.
Frankly I say make drugs legal. Sell them in the super market next to the cigarettes and tax the sh*t out them. Lower my taxes so some crack head can get his fix. Even if drugs where legal I don't think it would increase their usage much if at all. People who are going to do drugs are going to do drugs. Those who are not going to do drugs are going to avoid them.
I wish they'd bothered to realize that online gambling will never pose any real threat to their existance.
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
And I for one do not believe in restricting freedoms becasue it offends *my* religion. And *my* religion can beat up *your* religion! So there. (Really: Just what religion is it that says that some people may be controled by other people?)
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Wow! First Post!! (neener, neener...)
There is no substantial difference. The difference is that the states are making a huge bundle from lotteries (once known as "the numbers racket"), which they are not from E-gambling sites.
The Nevada/New Jersey "gaming" interests are pushing this in a big way, as it also cuts into their exorbitant profits.
Same-o, same-o - read ecclesiastes:
"There is no new thing under the sun..."
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
> I'll bet a dollar on a lark to win 100 Million
> dollars. If I don't win, it is one pop I don't
> drink, and I got a little excitement out of it
> as entertainment.
Ahhh but you see I have you better there too.
You can get infinite amounts of entertainment for FREE. All from the Lotto. Here is how I do it.
I don't play. Then I adopt an arrogent attitude towards the entire subject. All you need to do is bring on an air of superiority and feel good about yourself knowing "I am better than them, because I don't waste my money". Then I go around saying things like:
"I win the lotto every week. All I have to do is not play. I net $52/year doing it...every year. Which is much more than the average joe who plays it and maybe wins $5 once every other year".
The nice thing is...its free. Its also a bit og a gamble...afterall if one of the people who plays DOES win...then they get to brag about it and bother you. Of course, given the odds...I figure im doing pretty good.
Afterall I win every week...there is 1 chance in a few billion that I will lose. Not bad odds huh?
I get to do it with sports too. Although there its more like "Whats this we stuff? Are you on the team now?" or "Yes big deal, watch a bunch of men get paid alot of money to get sweaty and move a ball around. Fun fun fun."
Best part - there is no end to the entertainment that you can get from it...and its FREE.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I don't think the government pretends that education is anything more than what it is: teaching the children a common basis of knowledge so that they can communicate effectively and become intergral parts of society. Education imparts information and knowledge, but at the same time implicitly enforces conformity. Is conformity good? To a large extent, yes. It means that the society is more efficient, is more united and less likely to segregate into subgroups, and therefore less likely to have social problems. Is conformity dangerous? Absolutely. Too much conformity leads to a general apathetic social attitude.
In the U.S. the issue of conformity and "fitting" in has always been a problem. Race issues are the most prominent manisfestation of this.
It is important to realize that public/government sponsored education is neither good nor evil (though to the society, it is good because it trains future conformants). Its chief goal is about integration. Whether it's good or bad is your own interpretation. For the most part I think people will agree more education is better than less education in our society, because it means a more skilled population that is able to communicate more effectively. It means greater efficiency because there is less energy wasted trying to translate and interpret people's communications.
We are subject to a few very large influences in our lives, aside from our friends and families. We are subject to education, religion, and corporate marketing. I think of those three, education is the most innocuous, and marketing the most dangerous. Imagine that marketing is telling us how to spend our money and how to live our lifestyles according to what these corporate interests want us to believe is the right way to lead our lives. If there's anything you should focus your tirade on, it's corporatism, not education. Corporations are becoming increasingly large in scale and powerful. Many corporations have more power (read: money) than many countries.
You think the government "socially engineering" kids is bad? How about the likes of Disney and other companies "market engineer" (I can't think of a better word for the moment) your kids into believing the they want to watch this movie and buy that toy and dress like so and so and drink and eat this and that? It happens all the time through TV. Which is the larger problem?
It's very simple, and any moron could readily figure it out:
Any other questions?
--
Here's my mirror
"They're going to have an increasing difficulty getting access to cash," he said. "There has got to be an intermediary to wire that cash, and credit card companies and wire companies will be increasingly concerned about getting involved in activities that are banned."
Oh yeah? In another year or two, digital payments through an internet currency will lessen the dominance of the credit card companies. Look at PayPal, DotBank, etc.
I think that state budget for education probably figures on income from Lottery, meaning, they rely on lottery as part of the state income when figuring out the budget. So in that sense, that money that was supposed to have gone to education is going to education, and it's coming from the lottery. I can't vouch for the actual numbers nor for any other states either, though.
Taxes of course, the same difference between moonshine and legal liquor.
--------------------------------
Check out AbiWord.
Being educated in a Government Indoctrination Center often results in illiteracy, innumeracy, and a fantastical belief in a Utopia where the government takes care of all ills from cradle to grave.
As Ronnie Reagan so famously said, "Government isn't the solution to our problems, it is the problem.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
The difference between illegal gambling and state lotteries is easy -- one's legal and the other isn't. The state says so.
It isn't { operated by US citizens | operating on US soil | subject to US law }. Are you missing something?
It our state (Vermont), they inform you that it's for education, that you won't get rich off of it, and that you should only buy in a responsible manner. They also provide access to the various gambling addiction hotlines and organizations.
Perhaps you should write a letter to your state Government, so as to ensure that they're informing people.
Personally, I feel that it's obvious that you won't get rich, and that people just do it because they refuse to let go of a tiny ray of hope that their income might one day be more than $30k, for $1. It's a bit foolish, but telle est la vie.
Remember that 'Constitutional' freedoms described under the US Constitution do NOT apply to the rest of the world.
Doug
So?
If they're stupid enough to spend their money that way, is it my fault?
If they were spending their disposeable inccome, I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem with them losing it. But why should those people who want to gamble recreationally have to go without because these idiots don't know when to draw the line and burn up their grocery money?
Ban roads, because a few pedestrians forget to stay on the sidewalk and get killed.
Ban knives, because a few people cut themselves while they're trying to slice apples.
Ban gasoline, because a few hundred idiots cut into a pipeline in Nigeria and start collecting it from the puddles with buckets?
If a hick can't figure out when he's burned up his (meager?) disposeable income and burns through his grocery/rent money, where's the problem?
Theoretically, that person will starve to death, hence removing himself from the human genepool, and thus increase the quality of the breeding population.
Don't protect the stupid through laws that inconvenience the intelligent. Not only does it make life less enjoyable for the bulk of the population, but it also helps to ensure that the human genome will continue to carry the stench of failure for eons to come.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Hey, if people want to blow their money by being prime examples of Pavlov's Dog, more power to them.
The Man's making his money off the gambling rings anyway. He just needs to shut up, sit down and watch the Mathematically deficient blow their money.
As a quote said somewhere "Gambling is a tax on those with poor Math skills."
The only reason I could possibly see the Gov't not wanting Internet gambling is if they are unable to tax it.
IS
I actually think that my analogy would be that people with AK-47's couldn't ship them to Americans who tried to buy them. The guns would be stopped and seized at customs. End of story.
*ding ding* You can't stop ANYONE from doing ANYTHING in ANY other country than the USA. You can't stop me from sending you kiddie porn, guns, whatever - period. It will, as you mentioned, be stopped by customs. Customs is not the ISP. So, why not set up internet customs and be done with it? Filter all traffic into and out of the US, just like mail? That's the precdent this bill is setting up, and that should scare you shitless. Hence, why not just do that, and get the debate out of the way once and for all?
They're not trying to outlaw international gambling. They're just making US residents (consumers and business owners alike) abide by US laws. End of story.
Oh, no, they're not. They're trying to make ISP's spend lots of money to do their job, under threat of heavy fines and/or imprisonment.
..don't panic
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If the government can figure out a way to easily account for and tax gambling nicome and losses, then the government will legalize it all,
Err, strike out the word losses there. Nobody in gambling wants to account for losses. Gains yes, but they don't want you to see losses.
A friend of mine discovered this reciently. When he goes fishing his wife goes to the casino. He got audited last year (for 97 taxes), and has to pay back taxes on $10,000 of unreported gambling earnings. Of course legally if he can account for all the money he spent on gambling he can offset those winning with the losses. Nobody is keeping those records (If he wants them, then his wife needs to go to the back office of the casino every time and get a recipt for every penny spent. They will do it, but not in public)
Your argument also overlooked religion. I for one do not belive in gambling for religious reasons, and I would consider restricting your freedom to gambol because it offends my religion. I do not know how I would accually vote on this issue if it came up, but don't ignore it.
Here's another what's the difference;
What's the difference between asking a woman out, buying her dinner, paying for a movie, and then going to bed, vs. just handing her the cash up front and jumping directly into bed?
Oh, yeah, that silly taxation thing again. The state gets taxes on the dinner and movie, but the prostitute probably doesn't report her income.
Merde, il pleut encore!
and illegal gambling?
:)
revenue
Not that I'm cynical or anything
Griffone...........
I used to have a cool sig.
Well, this explains why schools don't do a better job at teaching math. If the number of people with poor math skills decreased, schools would lose part of their funding ;-)
What is it with the american psyche that demands everything be banned?
I don't think the desire to codify every aspect of human behavior and have it controlled by the state is a particularly American inclination. In fact, I'd say we tend less toward this sort of thing than most other countries. And when some idiot manages to get a really horrendous piece of crap put into law, there's a reasonable chance that the Supreme Court will overturn it. Luckily, in this particular case, even if this bill were to become law and be upheld, technology makes it a futile effort. The government can no more keep a gambler away from an online casino than it can keep drugs out of the country.
So how is that different from the state putting you in b-f prision for not paying your taxes, or executing you if you kill another citizen??? :)
The government can no more keep a gambler away from an online casino than it can keep drugs out of the country.
This is the part that worries me. Why pass laws that aren't going to have an effect, or have little/no hope of serving there intended purpose? Laws for the sake of laws are BAD BAD BAD. More laws == less freedom. You don't need lots of laws. You need common sense and a willingness to apply existing law (I like the common law system better, but, we only really got a "constitution" here (Charter of Rights and Freedoms)- different systems.
The current attitude towards drugs, guns, "obscene" material, anything related to explosives and the internet, etc etc is to protect the people from themselves, which is not the concept upon which the american state was formed. (Individual freedom over the power of the state, or so I understand). It sounds like those congressmen need more history lessons! (In the case of "obscene" material, people forget that you can get most everything in the library of congress, but somehow that's different.)
The american people are extremely lucky they have a system of checks and balances in place given the effective choices you have in elections (2) and general political apathy. Otherwise, you'd all be going to church every night and smiling for the TV camera in your bedroom in the morning. That seems to be where current legislation is going, so why not propose and debate that?
..don't panic
>Whats the differnce between gambling and
>Wednesday night Church bingos?
Depends.
Legalized gambling (ie, in Vegas or Atlantic City) pays taxes.
Illegal gambling and church bingos do not.
-LjM
"What's the difference between illegal gambling and state-sanctioned lotteries?" The same as the difference between Ritalin and methamphetamine. The Man doesn't get a cut.
Darwin's theory is not doing its job because of the things that go on in this article.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
between state sanctioned lotteries and congressional elections?
Not much, occasionally there is a winner, but you have a much greater chance of losing.
Actually, whenever a convenience store proposes me a lottery ticket, when the store is crowded, I say very loudly " I win $1 at every drawing, I don't buy a ticket ". I'm sure plenty of people lining up behind me to buy one didn't buy...
--
Here's my mirror
The right way to put a lid on Internet gambling is to make gambling-related credit-card debts non-enforceable. This has already happened in California. People can still send money orders out of the country, but it's harder to get into debt that way. All that's needed is to make it easy to get refunds from credit card companies for gambling debts, and the credit card companies will stop dealing with online casinos.
While I agree that the Internet is a valuable tool for everyone and should be upheld and preserved, it is also important that it not be misused. Therefore, it seems to me that this bill is an important step in America rectifying some of the wrongs it has caused.
There will be complaints from many of you that this bill is ill-conceived and impractical. I think that it's far more important that something be done about the sin and family-destroying habit of gambling. In Hong Kong, an average of 10% of every family's income goes to horse racing, and 30% of all men have what could be described as a gambling addiction.
Needless to say, this is a huge social problem, and America could easily become just the same if we are not careful. If no one can come up with a better solution (and no one has yet), then this is the path we must choose.
If the internet casino is illegal, how can they enforce payment of debts? What can stop someone playing the site, losing the money, then complaining to VISA card that the site was illegal and you didn't know. That way you can get your money back.
That would soon shut them down. The only people who would honour the contracts are the winners.
True - both are gambling, but so is the stock market. :)
the big difference is that there are plenty of eyes watching the gov't gambling, to keep the chances real. Offshore casinos could easily jack the chances for winning, as well as dodge taxes...
- passion
I, for one, tend to think gambling is a good thing. If some people are so crazy that they want to throw away their money, fine. But, I think this kind of gambling is different from state lottery and should be controlled somehow. These people should at least get a fair chance to lose their money. I love state lotteries though, because they lower my taxes and I don't take part in them. Gambling is a tax on the stupid.
------------
a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
How about me considering restricting your "freedom" to religion because shoving your religion down my throat restricts my freedom to, say, gamble or simply enjoy anal or oral sex with anybody I want?
Don't shove your fucking religion down my throat, and I won'd shove anything down your throat, nor anything up your ass, for that matter.
--
Here's my mirror
Internet gambling already is estimated to be a billion-a-year industry and is growing rapidly.
Followed by this one: Internet gambling is estimated to be a $600 million-a-year industry skyrocketing to as much as $3 billion by the year 2002, according to industry analysts.
Who's the twit who threw in the first figure for that extra 'bite' that the article needed?
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
speaking of tax, lottery is more like a voluntary tax for specific purposes like education for those who are more inclined to ignore mathematical probability in pursue of a dream (I don't like to think lottery as a tax for the mathematically disinclined, as one joke goes, because my own grandparents enjoyed purchasing lottery tickets and they kind of do it just for fun)
I guess more than anything, gambling is usually illegal because of two things: Cheating and scams that swindles people out of a lot of money, and taxable gambling income. How many people actually honestly report gambling income? The government would want a piece of that action, I'm sure. With Internet-based gambling, the cheating and swindling would be on a larger scale, more easily perpetrated, and harder to trace (in some cases). Where would the taxes be collected?
If the government can figure out a way to easily account for and tax gambling nicome and losses, then the government will legalize it all, IMHO.
the US government runs newspaper adverts overseas for "green card lotteries", where you pay $50 (or something) and can win residency. how can they possibly take a moral stance on gambling when they're prepared to gamble with their own residents?
aMEEERiCAAN PEEEple, are you paying attention?
1) When the state does it, it's called lotto; when the mob runs the exact same game, it's called the numbers racket (yes, it's the same game. I knew a former courier who told of them using the police band to show the game was fair--they used the numbers of squad cars being called out as their numbers . . .)
2) the mob would be embarassed to only return 50%
If you want to make these activities freely avaible, _fine_, just don't expect the government to spend MY MONEY developing treatements or clinics for these idiots.
If you want to make these activities illegal, _fine_, just don't expect the government to spend MY MONEY developing more prisons.
cpeterso
The applicability of probability theory to certain real-world situations is not well demonstrated.
The classic examples are one-shots like "at what dollar figure X does Russian Roulette with a revolver having Y chambers become reasonable?"
If you look at poverty that you can't save your way out of - stashing away $1 per week won't ever raise your standard of living significantly in the US - the low but non-zero odds move from stupid to questionable.
And if you consider the asset limits on welfare recipients, playing the lottery is downright clever. You can't save/invest your way out of welfare - you lose too much income - but hitting the lottery will do it.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
What does the ISP have to do with illegal gambling? Nothing.
The government goes after the ISP because that's the easiest. It's the same principal as the RIAA going after Napster - the users are the ones breaking the law, but prosecuting hundreds of thousands of them is impossible. The ISP has a physical reality and financial assets, and most won't even put up a fight - it's much easier for them to capitulate to pressure and do whatever government wants than to engage in a costly fight, even if they're in the right. The tobacco and gun industries are good examples of what can happen to you if you get the wrong folks mad.
"make it a federal crime...to operate a Web site that accepts wagers from Americans"
Whoops....better reconsider that web-based app to keep track of next year's NCAA pool.
Somehow I doubt it would get down to the small ISP's. If you got the major backbone providers to configure the core routers not to route those addresses you'd do a pretty good job of blocking the addresses.
There have always been interesting laws on the books about gambling. For instance the US requires that no gambling occurs on flights that terminate or originate on US soil. Even if the gambling itself happens in international airspace.
>I'll bet a dollar on a lark to win 100 Million dollars
Yeah, but it's not you I'm talking about. It's the morons who line up in the local convenience store each week to by 20 or 50 tickets. Those people are the ones who are apparently unable to comprehend the odds. Buying a ticket when the pot is $100 million, I've done that. What does it hurt - I've gotten a bit more than $1 worth of entertainment just from the idle daydreaming about how I'd spend the money and flip off my boss.
Buying 20 tickets, you are giving $20 a week to the government because you are stupid.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
But seriously, so what? If somebody is willing to risk putting their credit card up to play an online game, let them... Remember a fool and his money are soon parted. Personally, I want to see the dice roll and the cards come out of the chute or the source code for the games. This way I can feel safe while I watch those weighted dice roll or marked cards come out. How easy would it be to rig an online game in the house's favor? Better yet make eveybody "playing" a game lose but show the losers that there were winners even though they don't exist... If they are off shores, they may not have to even answer to anybody.
It must have something to do with the government not getting their cut of the winnings... Now it all makes sense. Probably, doesn't help to have people digging themselves into debt either. So since I'm not as trusting as some and as a result will never go to an online casino, and don't want my taxes to go to the social programs to help those who are more trusting, good move USA. On the other hand, I don't feel like being censored so <favorite four letter explitive> the USA. C'mon all they need is one to get the ball rolling and then we can turn this republic into a dictatorship....
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
A penalty can only be applied in jurisdictions that care. If someone in China sets up a gambling website do you think they are going to care about a fine that can never be enforced? What about SEALAND?
We cannot seize assets because none exist to take. Electronic transfer sent the money before the gambling.
This is a perfect example why other countries think we are a few bricks short of a full load:
Lottery gambling is good.
Vegas/Atlanta/Reservation gambling is good.
Internet gambling is bad.
All of the above.
Will it be illegal to provide links to where people can gamble on the net ? Nope I don't think so.
And it won't be 10 minutes before the first non-blocked site will offer to proxy all traffic for www.letsgamble.com.
Here's how:
www.letsgamble.com (hereafter just called LG) will pay joeschmuck (you and me) for putting up a specific proxying. All traffic between LG and the gamblers will be encrypted at LG's site. The traffic will pass thru the proxy sites encrypted, that way nobody can sniff or manipulate the connections.
As soon as the governament agency responsable for the censorshit will have sent the ISP's a new IP address to block, a new proxy service will pop up somewhere.
Information about where to find proxies to gamble, will then be provided by www.2600.com or www.eff.org
Sigh,, will they newer learn ?
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
FWIW, I'm not an American, I reside north of the border. But, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. What is it with the american psyche that demands everything be banned? Why go after the ISP? They didn't do anything. It's the guy that's actually doing the gaming that's breaking the laws, so go after him! It's laws like this that are dangerous because they don't go after the criminal, they attempt to change everyone's behaviour to _prevent_ something that you shouldn't be doing. "Speeding is illegal, so let's ban freeways!" "Armed robbery is illegal, so let's take everyone's guns!" (Big fight here in Canada about this now.. under new policy, the government will be allowed into any residence to check that a registered weapon is safely stored, by law, ack!)
It seems the answer to everything these days is to ban/censor/deem unfit whatever is unpaletable to a select minority in the congress. So, let's ban everything, give the police absolute arbitrary power (well, they almost have it now) and everything will be A-Ok!
In the day of state-sancioned casino gaming and lotteries, this seems ridiculous! What's next? Banning vacations to countries who make lots of money on gaming? Let's revoke those passports now! What's the difference between going to the carribean and blowing your dollars there, and blowing them via an online route? (Obviously, you're under the laws of the US in the latter case, but from a moral standpoint, is it any different?)
Yeeeesh
..don't panic
Lotteries are:
-less fun (no flashing lights, ringing bells or buxom babes)
-more trouble (often you can't find out if you've won until later that day or WEEK)
-more fraudulent (casino's advertise the fun of playing, lotteries advertise the winning--which happens more often)
-more hypocritical (using taxes on people with poor math skills to pay for education?)
I could go on...
--
Linux MAPI Server!
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(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
If I want to lose all my money online gambling isn't that my option. After all when did it become the governments job to protect the stupid from themselves. Actually it is too bad that, the government has taken that role. Frankly if they don't want people gambling online they should probably take down the auctions too. After all isn't it sort of a gamble that you get exactly what you want? Or that the person on the other end isn't upping their bid.
Kate
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
I've always felt that America is rather harsh on the subject of gambling. Most countries find it beneficial to make sure it's legal and well regulated. There's no way of totally eliminating all the illegal gambling, and its virtually impossible to stop offshore gambling sites.
The people who are going to have a gambling problem are going to whether its legal or not. These are the only people that need protection. And the government is missing out on a lot of potential tax revenue.
To quote from the article
Goodlatte's bill would make it a federal crime -- punishable by up to four years in prison and fines of $20,000 or more -- to operate a Web site that accepts wagers from Americans.
So Havenco's american backers could all find themselves outlaws if they start to host online gambling that doesn't discriminate against sucker^H^H^H^H^Hpatrons in the US.
The article makes it clear, the bill has been written in a determinedly confusing way to allow for selective enforcement, and selective non-enforcement in the case of large campaign contributors. Politics as usual.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I know someone who would have been significantly better off if she didn't gamble her money away buying those "numbers".
She still continued doing so even when we worked it out for her- e.g. if she had saved what she spent 10 years ago, plus interest, she'd be quite a few k richer. Not rich, but definitely a lot better than nothing.
10 bucks a week is 520 bucks a year, is 5200 bucks after 10 years (let's assume bank interest = inflation rate).
That person really didn't have much in the way of expenses - food + lodging supplied during her employment, so she could have saved a LOT more than 5K.
It is sad. But should we force them to save? It is indeed one of their small pleasures in life - the thrill etc. And it is their money.
It's just like smoking too. They're burning their money and health away. But you can't force them to stop.
I think it's in our genes. Think about it. Say you don't believe there's God, Heaven etc ( I do by the way). In the long run, the odds are we're all dead. So what's the point? But we go on, it's all we've got, and the little pleasures that we get is enough to keep us going. It's just eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we die.
Those that didn't think it was worth it, never bothered to survive long enough to have descendants.
And there's the gambler's streak- because who knows, there's a chance that something really great could happen tomorrow and change everything totally for the better.
Cheerio,
Link.
So if you bet on the horses does that mean you are hoping that god is some sort of equine? Or are you betting that Satan is around and their is no god. I'm a Unitarian, we give money to our congregation. What the hell are we betting on? I guess our odds are pretty bad, since we are betting on a big MAYBE.
Kate
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
My question is, does the law say "Internet" or just "computer network"? A lot of casinos have computer networks that they use to hook up the slot machines... maybe those are illegal? Either that, or can we just change the name of the Internet and avoid all this $#@$ restriction?