Slashdot Mirror
U.S. House Clears Anti-Internet Gambling Bill
matr0x_x writes "The U.S. has just moved one step closer to banning all Internet gambling sites when the US House of Representatives cleared an anti-Internet gambling bill yesterday. The bill is against a World Trade Organization ruling last August that stated the US must not block online gambling sites based overseas." From the article: " The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law."
The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law.
/ Savemoney/P99649.asp
So, today, its legal to do money transfers for illegal gambling?
So, today, in my state, the government is the only legal gambling outfit? (lottery)
So, its illegal for me to do business in another country according to their laws?
I don't gamble beyond retirement funds, insurance, and whatnot.
Here is interesting, and typical situations from those that "win" the lottery: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt
In the end, nothing will change. Offshore gambling will be no different.
I wouldn't be using the US financial system to fund the account, it would be my British (where this is legal, regulated, and presumably taxed) account, transferring money to a British online casino (pokerstars, for example). I would be using US wires to notify them to do this, but I'm not notifying them to do anything illegal (under their laws), so not running afoul of wire statutes...
Would this work? If so, I can see a huge business opportunity for overseas banking for the little guy, as opposed to the big corporation which uses a similar dodge to avoid taxes.
All this is going to do is encourage people to forgo using the direct deposit features most sites offer, opting for indirect funds deposits.
Right now, most sites offer the ability to write an e-check directly from a player's bank account to the poker site. However, virtually all sites also offer deposit via Neteller or Firepay. Since the latter method is not traceable since the 2 companies are not based in the US, players will just opt to use that method now.
So what this bill is effectively doing is encouraging people to launder how they cash in and out of poker sites. It will do nothing to stop people from actually playing.
There is way too much puritanical bullshit going on with Congress and their attempt to bring on their desired theocracy. Problem is they are trying to do it a little too fast. Bill passes, who gives a shit? It's not like the US controls the internet and it's a token gesture. If there were an organized online gaming lobby that could pay off Congressmen this would have never seen the light of day. The US has the best government that money can buy. They are so out of touch with the mainstream (Terri Schiavo anyone?) that a major realignment is going to happen hopefully with the 2006 elections.
Like the passage of the DMCA, it's just another example of a stupid congress that tries to legislate something that it knows nothing about.
The great land of freedom seems to be moving much more towards a "freedom from" instead of "freedom of". I am greatly saddened by this - what was once one of the best places to live in the world is becoming a place of limitations and loopholes. They have lost most of their credibility with the rest of the world because of their hypocritical stances; "freedoms" are claimed, but not often given, "peace" is desired, but war follows. Online gambling is becoming prohibited, but the most American city on the planet is Las Vegas, the city of excess.
This is the problem that happens when old men who are scared of anything new make decisions that affect other people. I am confident that the main problem with online gambling is that it is harder for the government to regulate than meatspace gambling. When the pie becomes virtual, it's harder for regulators to get their piece.
I'm not a proponent of online gambling (or gambling in general, though I do participate in the occasional poker tournament or hockey pool), but I think that this sort of regulation is a little ridiculous. Legislate elsewhere, O Government, where you can be beneficial to society. Why not start on the patent system? Why not figure out how to respond to natural disasters? Why not just about anything else?
The biggest problem here is that most of the politicans making decisions like this are old men that tend not to understand what they are making decisions about. The great hope for actual freedom in the USA is that, in time, the people will start to become more acclimatized to technology and will be able to make more informed decisions about the uses thereof.
It is absolutely ludicrous that an American citizen can become a billionaire running a gambling company that gets 70% of its revenues from Americans in America where this online gambling is illegal, and that this service is openly advertised all over the US media. The Partypoker founders should be extradited, charged, and their assets forfeited.
Do you think I would get away with it if I moved to Thailand and set up a website partypot.com, selling baggies of marijuana to Americans? This is no different.
The first step in considering any technically-oriented bill should be to post it on Slashdot, and have everyone find the ways in which it is stupid.
I'm guessing that the Internet Gambling bill is like the Internet Porn bill. After the Internet Porn bill passed, the only porn available in the U.S. on the internet was on Playboy's web site and on the web sites of other traditional porn sellers. It was not difficult to guess that porn magazines paid congress people for the bill, which was soon overturned.
Now brick-and-mortar gambling companies and maybe the lotteries run by states apparently want to restrict "gambling" to ways in which they can profit.
There is no gambling in "gambling" or "gaming". If you play enough, you will ALWAYS lose exactly the percentage they say you will lose. "Gambling" is a tax on those who don't understand the mathematics of statistics.
Bills should be named by some other group than those who sponsor them. Maybe the Internet Gambling bill should be named the "More Profit for Las Vegas and Atlantic City Bill".
--
The movie Loose Change, 2nd Edition claims, basically, that the U.S. government was overthrown.
Unfortunately, IRS will also stick its nose into this. New regulations REQUIRE disclosure of foreign bank accounts on your tax return EACH YEAR, if various conditions are met, which I believe would probably include this scenario. Then add in the fine print from the Patriot Act and other nefarious bills passed and suddenly you've been brought in for questioning and a body cavity search just because you thought you should be allowed to played penny ante poker on-line. Gosh it's so nice to move about minding your own business in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." "Ja, Herr Kernel, I have my identification card and travel pass right here for your inspection."
IMHO, this bill has nothing to do with gambling. It has to do with controlling the flow of offshore funds and gambling is just a nice sounding excuse sorta like terrorisim and the war on drugs. The real fear of the government is that people will protect their rights because it is so easy to move money and funds offshore outside IRS controll. In the old days, the war on drugs was enough to hold most average people in check, but now with the information age they need to resort to more desperate measures.
...this new legislation will certainly stop all that evil poker playing, won't it?
.5 / .10 cent No Limit on PartyPoker)
Most credit card companies quit processing direct transactions to PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, and Full Tilt in the last 12-18 months. I did find some local banks' debit cards will work on all 3 of those, but no majors like Visa and MasterCard.
And as some have pointed out, FirePay and other indirect transactions will not be affected.
The stupidity of this is that several major US casinos had on-line poker business plans in the works only to see the feds rain on their parade. If you had a choice to play online poker with a off-shore site or a "branded" U.S. site like Harrah's, which would you choose?
The casinos would almost certainly give incentives and freebies for on-line players to visit their brick and mortar (or plastic and neon, if you prefer) locations, helping local economies while raking in TAXABLE revenue from both.
This is a mostly useless law that will do little to impact on-line gaming in the U.S. (unless of course they contract the R.I.A.A. to kick in grandma's door while she's playing
I am my own gestalt.
if the US actually did, which the article submitter's sensationalism makes it hard to tell without spending more time than I have reading about it right now
The WTO did rule that the US couldn't prohibit online gambling, but it was later narrowed to only online horse racing, so the submitter is indeed wrong.
And the WTO has no real power to tell the US not to. That's the beauty of being a sovereign nation.
Here you are sorely mistaken. The WTO has the power to leverage punitive fines against the US if we don't abide by their rules, which they have done on several occasions.
I'm confused as to why anyone would "loathe" gambling of any type, but especially poker. I suspect it is the moral issue. Some small percentage of the population will develop a gambling problem just as some percentage of adults will become alcoholics. To believe that beer and poker cause this problem is like believing that Downs syndrome is caused by sex.
:)
I don't drink or use drugs; I don't play blackjack or craps; I don't even buy lottery tickets. I do, however play poker whenever I can find the time. Poker is a game of skill where all of the players have the same odds of getting dealt the best hand. I see it as no different than football or auto racing. It's just than geeks do better poker players than linebackers
-Dan Rode
Hmmm, ever tried looking up anti-semitic sites on Yahoo from France? Tried bidding on swastika-embellished merchandise on eBay from Germany? The problem is they are making US-based companies responsible for the Actions of their citizens.
Because many US states license gambling in some form or another, some assume this is just a pissing match over something the US hasn't figured out how to tax, yet. However, there are many folks in the US who aren't at all happy with the spread of gaming here no matter what the tax revenue is, and quite a few of them sit in the US Congress.
What it comes down to is that some folks don't want to let the next Hitler find his voice, and other folks the next Al Capone to fund his.
Luke, help me take this mask off