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U.S. House to Vote on Anti-Online Gambling Act
SonicSpike writes to mention that the House is set to vote on an act designed to choke off the U.S. money flow to internet gambling. Though illegal here in the states, overseas operators are getting a good deal of business from individuals with U.S. bank accounts and credit cards. From the article: "The legislation would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to these sites. It also allows law enforcement officials to force Internet service providers to remove links to the websites. Many major credit card companies already refuse to process such payments. Opponents of the bill, including online gambling sites and a new group representing U.S. poker players, noted the growing popularity of Internet gambling and predicted that people would continue to sidestep laws."
You guys can't gamble on the internet? [Takes long drag from joint]. I thought the USA was the land of freedom..?
re:"Whatever happened to the land of the Free? If you want to gamble your money on-line, why shouldn't you be able to?"
Um - some boat people you sent our way got mixed up into our politics. The one's wearing belt buckles on their heads. Thanks for starting us out with the best and the brightest.
The power elite will impose whatever policy brings in more revenue for government. It's really that simple. Government is run as a business, and like any business, more revenue is always viewed as a good thing. The objective for the power elite is to maximize revenue and "market share" (control over the people), and that is exactly why every year there are thousands more laws on the books than the year before, and exactly why all governments tend to expand, and never reduce, their powers throughout their existence.
Take prohibition for example: sure, they could tax drugs and "allow" us our god-given right to voluntary association, but prohibition rakes in billions per year for government, and provides them with orders of magnitude more power than regulation and taxing, which can be leveraged for even more profit. Therefore, prohibition is here to stay, at least as long as big government is here to stay.
They will literally sit down and discuss how to maximize revenue and market share, like any business would, and the answer will be determined exactly that way. Don't you love being ruled by other human beings?
Idiots but for another reason.
This is a very interesting item as far as globalisation is concerned because a number of countries where gambling is a major industry have filed a WTO case against the US for restricting free trade. More specifically it is related to stopping credit card payments to entities in these countries by Visa and MasterCard. Any congress intervention before the WTO proceedings are complete is putting the US on a deliberate collision course with the WTO.
Also, it is a classic case of double standard. Free trade which lines the pockets of an American corporation is OK. Free trade which cannot line the pockets of an American corporation and goes to other nations is not OK. And god forbid if it is against the beliefs of the taleban elders.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
When offshore gambling sites first popped up 10+ years ago, the quick and easy way to deposit money into them was via credit card. Around 6-7 years ago, most credit card companies started denying payments to any "gaming website". While they claimed they were taking the moral high ground, the real reason is having to deal with chargebacks. Since it is against the law to collect on any gambling debt in the US, you had people running up their credit card bill at gambling sites, then protesting the charge and the card companies did not have a legal leg to stand on -- they certainly couldn't take anyone to court claiming they were owed this money that they knew was being used for gambling. When the card companies started denying payments, people started using middleman payment processors. The processor of choice was Paypal. Fees were high, but often times you could get the sportsbook to pick up the fees if you made a deposit. In 2002, when EBay bought Paypal, they decided they wanted to stop handling any grey area business since they were a large company and didn't want the legal liability. This meant dropping payment processing for most porn sites and gambilng sites. The irony of this was that Paypal made its name in the industry (and its fortune) off of gambling and porn sites, but was now ditching them now that they had achieved a higher status. When this happened, Neteller -- an offshore payment processing company -- was the one who got the biggest boost in business. With even higher fees, they essentially did what Paypal was doing (though with much less regulation and customer service). After a few years many people found they could no longer do credit card deposits to Neteller, so most have resorted to actually making direct bank deposits from their bank to Neteller. Neteller is still around today and is still what most people use to make sportsbook deposits. Western Union is also a company many people use, but people have found more and more they are asking a lot of questions on who exactly you are sending the money to -- obviously the government is putting the heat on them as well. Over the years many other small payment processing companies have popped up... All of course unregulated, but with the lack of viable options for getting money into offshore books, people have taken the chance.
Eye On Gambling -- www.eog.com
What I don't understand is... why is gambling deemed such a big deal in the USA?
Because authoritarians presently rule. I'm 54, but the Bill of Rights was a pathetic, toothless joke even before I was born. We aren't the land of the free, many if not most countries are freer (Canada, right on our border, for example). It's not the home of the brave, either; at least, our politicians are all yellow, as are most of my cowardly countrymen.
You allow people to drink
Not in every county. For a couple of decades it was illegal everywhere. You can get arrested for walking down the street drinking a beer in most cities.
smoke
Not certain substances (pot, crack, meth, heroin), and in my town nowhere indoors in public.
carry guns
Not really. Walk down a Chicago or New York street with a loaded shotgun and watch how fast the cops arrest or shoot you! Plus you can't transport a loaded gun legally, it has to be unloaded, broken down or disassembled, and can't be within the driver's reach.
and prostitute themselves (in some states, at least)
Only in Nevada. You can gamble in Nevada as well (slots, cards, dice, etc). Most states have some gambling; lottery, and there are riverboat casinos in many states (mine for one) where you can play poker, blackjack, roulette, slots, craps, etc; and we have horseracing and betting on it.
but not to bet on certain outcomes.
See "smoke". Also see "prostitution", my theory is that American casinos are pushing this law. America has the best government money can buy. I have no representation at all, the only people with representation are the corporates.
What I'm sure a lot of foreigners don't understand about the US is that it's a HUGE country, over 6400 km wide and over 3200 km north-south, with its biggest state, Alaska, sitting on top of Canada and with Hawaii way off in the Pacific, halfway to Japan. Our Constitution limits (limited, no longer it seems) Federal power, leaving the individual states to pass their own laws. In theory, at least. There is at present no Federal law against gambling or prostitution.
You have to remember that most US states are bigger than most European countries. It's over 600 KM from Chicago to Paducah, and Kentucky borders Illinois. And Illinois is only a medium sized state! I live in central Illinois, and the closest legal whorehouse is in Canada 300 miles away; Nevada is almost ten times as far.