Slashdot Mirror
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 got this email, and ended up losing all my money. Here's the story
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I see that a lot of people are looking at this whole thing from the point of view of what people should be allowed to do to themsleves, but online gambling is also against the US's interest as a whole.
We have a big trade deficit with China. They make lots of stuff that we buy. Basically, in exchange, we owe them stuff in the future (since the whole idea of money is to exchange for stuff). Hopefully the kind of stuff we'll be selling them is intellectual property, since it takes less effort to produce than real goods. Americans won't work as cheap as the chinese.
We're also going to owe a lot to oil-producing countries for all the oil they send us. It's much better for us both environmentally and financially to produce our energy locally (whether that be solar/wind/biodiesel/nuke/etc.). Coal is better financially, too, even if it's horrible for the environment. God knows *what* we're going to use to pay back all the oil debt.
This brings us to online gambling. Casinos in the US hire US construction workers to build the huge buildings, hire US people to work there, and are at least somewhat owned by US stockholders. Overseas casinos aren't monitored, and thus probably cheat. They also return absolutely nothing of value to the US for the money being sent to them. They contribute nothing to our economy in exchange for the millions of dollars they extract from US citizens.
In other words, I think that prohibiting online gambling is good, even if the libertarian prospective says that people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their money. It will also protect some of the stupider people from casinos that are unregulated and cheat.
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.