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Illinois to Pay for Unconstitutional Gaming Law
adam_sd writes "Those of us in the Video Game Voters Network were emailed a press release today stating that the state of Illinois will have to pay a half-million dollars in attorney's fees to the Entertainment Software Association, Video Software Dealers Association and Illinois Retail Merchants Association. ESA president Douglas Lowenstein is quoted in the press release saying "Judge Kennelly's rulings send two irrefutable messages — not only are efforts to ban the sale of violent video games clearly unconstitutional, they are a waste of taxpayer dollars." The law was declared unconstitutional in December of last year."
A lot of the whining revolves around the obligatory "here goes the government again" comments.
Perhaps I'm a bit naïve, but it seems obvious to me that jumping on some website hosted in some third-world country and giving them my credit card so I can play poker through some system controlled by the website against God-knows-who just seems like an invitation to get ripped off.
I'm just not surprised in the least bit to hear some online gambling site shut down or involved parties being arrested for fraud or whatever. Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long for some government somewhere to actually look at these sites and realize that there is no way at all to stop the owners thereof from ripping off customers coming and going (aside from the massive amounts of money they make simply from the actual gambling itself).
I've got one of the smallest lists of "things I love that our government has its fingers in," but you should also realize that along with the money the government collects around legalized gambling in the U.S., they also regulate it massivly and crack down fast and hard on places that are ripping people off (above the fact that gambling itself is a ripoff).
Australia has a VERY vibrant gambling scene. There are areas of the country where people pile most of their monthly salary into slot machines (which they call "pokies"). Australia has one of the highest concentration of poker machines in the world, and a high percentage of gambling addicts per capita.
Australia isn't interested in banning gambling as it brings in so much money. They just want to ban online gambling, as the money is likely to leave the country and not get taxed by the Australian government! This is protectionism, not some moral judgement on the part of the Australian government.
I wonder how long it'll be till Bush passes a law so that non-US companies can no longer advertise to US customers. It'll stop money leaving the US economy after all, and reduce the gaping trade deficit.
. . .violence is OK in the US then. But the devil will grab you be the b...s if you show a nipple somewhere. . .
The devil is not the law and the law is not responsible for the actions of the devil.
KFG