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Online Gambling Bill Passed in House
rkcallaghan writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the House passed a measure that makes it illegal for banks in the US to handle online gambling transactions." There's still no such move in the Senate, but it's a step towards banning online gambling nonetheless. Since this bill isn't expected to affect the usual, legal ways of gambling domestically, one wonders if such legislation would be sought after, were online gambling to be headquartered here in the states, rather than overseas.
I have never understood why the USA government is so against online gambling. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't allow it but it has always seemed odd to me that when some of the US states have amongst the most liberal gambling laws in the world, the federal government should be so keen on stopping internet gambling.
The sceptic in me wonders if some of the rich US casino owners don't have a hand in this, my only guess is that the casino owners are worried about gamblers using overseas websites in tax-haven countries that offer better odds maybe?
It is a violation of personal liberty for the State to forceably intervene in citizen's lives in this way.
Gambling is a personal activity which, when not abused, harms no one else.
You do not outlaw an entire activity from ALL people because it can be abused; you simply take steps to deal with the problem of abusive.
The only justification for *forceable* intervention in another individual's life is *self-defence*.
This principle is the very antithisis of Big Government.
We pay tax through our noses for other people to progressively control our lives.
Rich people have enough clout to say NIMBY when it comes to Casinos, powerplants, garbage dumps or pretty much any other item that could bring with it social negatives.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That's nothing. This same House just passed the Theocracy Protection Act, and the Torture Lover Act.
Grand Inquisitor Abu Gonzales will now have the option of torturing you when god tells him you're bluffing.
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make install -not war
It's no different that prostitution laws. Something that is perfectly legal to give away for free becomes a crime when money exchanges hands.
How to they get to dicate that? Start at "Think of the children," proceed through "The Constitution is just a godamned piece of paper," and wind up at "We are a nation of laws, poorly written and randomly enforced."
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Well, there are a few issues at play. First, many people don't understand statistics, or even believe that playing at a slot machine for several turns make the next turn more likely to win. Second, some people enjoy risk and uncertainty, and find it exciting or addicting to gamble for the sake of gambling. For these people, the payoff is enough.
Third, and most important, is people's utility of money. The value of money to an individual is not constant. If you have $30,000, doubling your money would make a huge impact in your life. If you had $1,000,000,000, doubling your money would have a slightly less huge impact in your life. This is why people with very little money can feel comfortable gambling (the gains in money are worth the risk) and people with a lot of money can make risky investments (the potential loss in money is worth the risk), but people in the middle don't feel safe doing either. It is also why people buy insurance: people would rather pay a little more than the expected value of a loss to guarantee that they don't end up severely disadvantaged because their utility with almost nothing is so much less than their utility of only losing the cost of insurance.
Risk and utility are strange concepts at times, but they are very useful at explaining human behavior.
They enact laws that are really about preserving their tax base.
he Alcohol and Tobacco industries arn't built on a central pillar of trying to effectively con people out of money though.
I have to disagree with this - these industries are constantly trying to con you out of money by making you think that you will gain a more desirable social status by using their products. It has, and is, one of the biggest, and ongoing con games that exist. And the deadliest - remember those billions of dollars that the tobacco industry lost in the suit filed against it, wasn't the result of its charity work - it was the result of a decades-long campaign to engage in calculated and deceitful advertising that conned millions of people into believing that smoking cigarettes neither addictive nor unhealthy.
Overseas casinos aren't monitored, and thus probably cheat.
In some ways it's harder for online casinos to cheat, because you can keep a perfect record of your history and analyze it for statistical discrepancies. There are guys with databases of millions of poker hands they've played. If the cards were non-random, they'd have found it.
They also return absolutely nothing of value to the US for the money being sent to them.
Except that people seem to enjoy playing. But the preferences of mere mortals are generally of little importance to those who would be all-powerful central planners.
I hope this passes, I think it will be good for the country to keep more money here to avoid contributing to the national debt, keep people from being cheated, and avoid contributing to future debt repayment and erosion of the value of the dollar.
This argument works equally well (i.e. poorly) for banning all spending on foreign goods and services.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.