Online Gambling Not Banned Yet

For the moment, the rush to legislate the ban on online gambling has been slowed. Senator John Warner, (R) from Virginia, has refused to allow a ban on online gambling to be tacked onto an upcoming defense bill. Opponents of online gambling were hoping to tack their measure on to a "must pass" bill but will apparently be forced to delay. Congress recesses in one week, giving only a few days left if this measure is to be passed before the November 7th elections.

Comments

Re:lame

[JavaBrain]

My understanding is that online gambling can never be fair, since multiple PC's can be used to play networked games at the same table (in poker, for example) sharing their cards with each other and improving their odds over the "honest" players.

So yes I think that is a problem.

Re:What is it with tacking things onto bills?

[Lehk228]

what we really need is a single subject law, so any bill may only refer to one subject, any passed with multiple subjects would be considered void and must pass again as single parts

Mindboggling to an European

[Eivind]

Your legislative process is, frankly, mindboggling to most Europeans. It is not clear to me why it makes sense to make a single vote on issues such as: "Should we spend $500 million more on the war in Iraq and ban online gambling ?"

To any sensible observer these would appear to be two completely separate questions, thus it'd make sense to vote on them separately, I *completely* fail to see the supposed benefits of this "rider"-system.

You even frequently see semi-controversial stuff "attached" to the most obscure nobody-cares piece of legislation in existence, hoping that it'll get passed before somebody notices or something. Hello ? The entire *point* of a democracy is that people *should* notice the controversial issues, debate them, and then vote on them.

Can somebody with an insigth please explain what the benefits are ? To outsiders, frankly, it just seems completely ridicolous.