Slashdot Mirror
Legal Online Gambling May Return to US
According to a story on News.com, legal online gambling may return to the US. The ban, put into place last year, is now in jeopardy thanks to the efforts of folks like Barney Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services committee. Frank is of the opinion that adults should police themselves for excessive gambling, and the government should stay out of their way. "Friday's hearing included witnesses from companies that process online payments. In general, they echoed the arguments once used in favor of ending alcohol prohibition and that are now being invoked to decriminalize marijuana: It's better to legalize, tax and carefully regulate an industry than let it flourish with far less oversight in the black market. Some countries already do just that. In the United Kingdom, for instance, Internet gambling is legal and strictly regulated. Some of the larger online casino operators are publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. "
While Frank is a policy wonk, and usually tries to find reasonable solutions to real problems unlike many of his colleagues, I can't help but wonder who is paying for this.
It's kind of interesting to see the Bush Administration in favor of restricting commerce, while Barney Frank (a Democrat) wants to allow a freer (albeit still heavily regulated) market.
GAMBLING IS A SIN - Please Keep the Ban!!
Remember jesus loves you
From TFA:
""In the end, adults ought to be able to decide for themselves how they spend the money they earn themselves," said Rep. Barney Frank"
Yeah, about that. You see Mr. Frank, you arrange the taking of a very large percentage of the money I work hard to earn every year, and you decide how it should be spent for me. So if you could go ahead and look into that while you're at it, that'd be great, mmmkay?
So it takes online gambling to get Barney to come around? Looks like someone must've spent a lot of time playing online poker.
Personally, I am waiting to hear Rudy Giuliani's (the former mayor who lived with two gay men) position on this before I can make a rational judgment about online gambling.
I am stupefied. Barney Frank has finally done something I agree with. The skiing must be pretty good in hell nowadays...
The American people are nowhere near mature enough to be trusted with foolish ways to lose money! I, for one, demand that this motion be defeated by moralizing elites with the power to regulate our vices! Such measures always work as planned!
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So it takes a large wad of cash donated by companies involved in online gambling to get Barney to come around? Looks like someone must've spent a lot of time playing online poker.
There, fixed that for you.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
oh come on...just one more post to slashdot....just one more, please?
Why not? His day job involves the world's most profitable brothel - seems like a smart bit of career choice.
Now, why exactly is this relevant to, you know, online gambling, which generally involves a minimum of hot man-on-man action?
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... what's the problem? Our government tried to outlaw a "sin" in the 20's with a Constitutional amendment, and had to repeal it because it was unpopular and unenforceable. I never thought outlawing it was a good idea anyway. I could care less about online gambling personally, but I am a recovering alcoholic and could certainly see how life would be a little easier if there was no booze anywhere around me. But that will never happen, just like a complete eradication of online gambling will never happen. It's just not practical, and I honestly question whether it's ethical anyway. Besides, it's up to me to stay quit -- not the government.
I happen to like Barney Frank a lot -- he's often the no-BS guy in a flock of honking geese in suits worth more than my car. And sometimes he's an arrogant jerk. But I rarely feel like I'm getting the D.C. sugar-coating treatment from him. So perhaps I'm biased. But still, I just don't see that this is a bad thing.
In a free society, people are responsible for themselves (and their children). If they can build a boat here in Illinois (we can't have land-based casinos, but we can have permanently docked unseaworthy boats -- go figure) where people can freely walk in and piss away their money, why should this be outlawed on the Web? It's a silly, unenforceable, and reactionary law that deserves to be repealed. The Reverend Lovejoys of the world had their year or two of cleanliness on this one, and it's time to go back to rational laws about things that the government should be focused on.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The side effect would be the companies selling the drugs, just like the cigarette companies today, but it is the lesser of two evils when compared to the mafia or a street gang.
I'd like to see taxes on profits from online gambling go straight to funding for basic education in impoverished areas. Many Native casinos could be put out of business by this thing, and it would be a shame if those communities lost most of their revenue and nothing made up for it.
I agree with the libertarians that anyone should be able to engage in any "vice" they want to in the privacy of their own home as long as it doesn't directly harm anyone. But I also think we have a responsibility to those whose circumstances aren't as fortunate as ours have been. There are some nearly-third-world areas of the US that could use a leg up, and in the process of restoring some basic freedoms to us online yahoos and googlers, we could end up taking away their only hope for a better life.
My truck is like a series of tubes.
That's all about banning video games. Woohoo!
Sin for the Jews maybe. If you even learned about the Bible, you would know that the Levitical Law was for the Jews, not for us Christians. But hey, this is /., who reads the scriptures anyway. RTFS seems a little sacrilegious.
That's why they want to enforce their local monopoly, um, I mean encourage people to play the lottery. If they had banned the lottery, vegas, etc when they banned online gamboling, it would have at least been consistent. As it is, there's no doubt that the government is just looking for more money. So they'll be happy to allow internet gamboling if they can regulate and tax the bejesus out of it, like every other legalized "sin".
I have, you presumptuous, anonymous ass. Now, please direct me to the passage in the New Testament that declares gambling a sin.
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If his opinion on adults' ability to police themselves extended into non-entertainment areas of life...
If he grew the understanding, that we are likewise capable of saving for retirement, finding job, choosing health-care options, etcetera, I would even have forgiven his copious amounts of non-help in the case of my grandmother's immigration to the US.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
too keep on line gaming fair and to enforce law against people who may try to cheat it and that may come from both sides.
Oh, and by the way, don't try pointing out statements by Paul that have to be teased through the interpretive comb to get results. I mean, really, who's missing the point badly enough to presume that anyone other than God in the person of Jesus can declare something a sin, except those who somehow venerate the a book, the product of the Nicene Council's editorial processes which elevate the writings of a man alongside those supposedly spoken by God?
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the Levitical Law was for the Jews, not for us Christians. ..and that is only one of the clear proofs that jesus was not the messiah.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Pirate Bay of the Caribbean ?
Antigua could be a major hosting site for torrents...
It's the heavy taxation and strict regulation I am opposed to. These are all things that should be controlled entirely by private citizens. Good old capitalism can handle these problems and there is no more justification for government regulation than any other industry.
Here is a wild thought, instead of trying to micro-manage every industry where businesses could endanger the health of individuals with poor standards or swindle individuals we start making the executives and investors in ALL businesses criminally liable for the actions. If food or drug processor took an action that harmed or endangered people then the ones who made the call should go to pound me in the arse prison. The same is true of casinos that use rigged machines that constitute fraud. Right now a company can use a dangerous chemical that will hurt people to cut corners and make hundreds of millions doing so. IF they get caught, the worst they face will be a few million in fines and lawsuits and probably will make a net profit on the affair. Even if they break even they will profit from the practice overall since any punk kid can tell you that the cops don't even know most crimes happen let alone catch the bad guys. If you make white collar decision makers subject to the same sort of consequences as the hungry crack addict on the street you can bet the decisions they make will reflect that.
Aside from enforcing criminal law, the only time the government needs to interfere with industry is fix the fundamental flaw in the free market. The flaw is of course companies that are too large to allow real competition. Of course single company monopolies aren't the only problem that needs to be solved, it is common practice now for several supposed competitors to collude in a manner that has the same effect as a monopoly. In both of these situations it is necessary for the government to step in and the right to property has to be considered secondary to the interests of the nation as a whole.
Why couldn't the Natives open their own online casinos?
...be reasoned with, but I doubt it.
He is a big supporter of Frank's efforts. But the top dog Republican is one of these new-breed losers who will surely try to stop this. Maybe Ron can hit him with a clue.
No, I don't think so. The laws in Leviticus were not supposed to be for anybody after Jesus came and died for the collective sins of mankind. Its just that non Christians never accepted the deal. People buying into only a portion or non at all has no effect upon whether or not Jesus is the true Messiah.
But what do I really care; I didn't accept it either.
But sort of back on topic: I don't understand what the fundamental difference here is between in person gambling and online gambling. I would wager a guess to say that the differences in behavior aren't as big as people might think. Sure online you don't directly touch the cards or cash, and as such can go through a huge number of hands very quickly. But one also isn't typically being given free drinks, distracted by other patrons or being separated from the time of day. No modern casino has clocks, and few have easy access to windows for the higher stakes games.
It seems to me that if done properly it ought to be possible to keep the nanny state politics to a minimum without unduly impairing an individuals ability to keep money for rent and food.
Here's where I do my "legal online gambling":
www.etrade.com
www.thinkorswim.com
(thinkorswim ROCKS by the way, if you trade options)
Its more to do with this ban being an illegal act under the WTO rules, with two judgements against the US and the threat of sanctions and fines. As has been reported before, US companies could lose international IP protection via Antigua if something isn't done.
The US HAS to move, otherwise Microsoft faces legal copies of software and Hollywood faces legal movie copies. It was always a stupid law, an illegal law - now there is a scramble to save face.
look, I'm all against fornication and sinning so long as it's others who are forbidden...but if I wanna gamble away my brat's edumacation cuz I have a "problem" then I should be able to! I mean, I could just as easily be a sociopathic philanthropist who gives the same money to heroin squeegee punks who demand more change! like zombies (super chill to the homeless) but instead, I'm a .Net programmer who profits from a previously legal industry that was destroyed overnight last november by a line item in a port authority bill, that actually had nothing to do with trade other than restricting free trade (online gambling ban is technically illegal according to free trade laws, which America doesn't really care because it doesn't obey any international laws/treaties itself, except it expects others to bow to its magnificence and cower in fear of its new world order of capitalist scumfukkery)
does that make me a hypocrit? directly profiting from the misfortune of others? first off, no. if someone is dumb enough to give their cash away in a game statistically rigged against them, that's their damn fault for valueing the temporary thrill of a win to rational, sanity. same reason why people jump off planes or mountains in flimsy human kites or human bungee yoyos. That is their fault! same thing as others have pointed out about alcohol (not a sin, drink jesus' blood, you vampires) or drugs (metarx? we got a cure for depression: suicide! take two of these and don't call me in the morning, you gullible pill pipping dumbfucks). do we ban alcohol? no! "puritanism was a bad idea in victorian england, and it's a bad idea now", someone once wrote here on slashdot...that's totally true. the more you whitewash humanity through litigation, the more you demand its existence to its subversiveness. there's something very important in THE SPIRIT of PERVERSENESS, the longing of the soul to vex itself, to do wrong for the wrong's sake only, to offer violence to our own natures. maybe it's a survival mechanism...for every 90/100 who are sheep by confluence of genetic predispositions, there are 10 who are vehemently opposed to "going with the flow". uniformity, conformism, are extenction characteristics of a calcified, doomed species. since we're adept at adaptation, I'd say, let the natives profit where they can, off our misery, off their own...and either rise or die as species do. we can do all we can to change or help, but if there's something fundamentally broken in their mindset (I work on a reserve, but am caucasian...so I know something of the suicide stats there and furthermore the ugliness of the big chief/italian/israeli nepotism that is the online gambling industry)
anyway, I hope this damn law gets repealed, because eventually the world will get fed up of america and will massively invest in ways to bring you down...barbarians at your door, so to speak. You can't pretend to be "for the little guy" when the "little guy" can't afford a major surgery, or stand for fairness and justice when there is already a thriving non-internet gambling industry of $30B USD per year. Go against gambling addiction by fighting the root causes...a lust for earthly gold as opposed to gold of character. I'm not talking about forcing spirituality or some other nonsense as a solution (which never worked before, and never will...believing in lies does not illuminate the truth, no matter your pugnacity or persistence to portray it so)...I'm just saying let people make their mistakes, let them have their sins...because the word "sin" only has power to those living in fear of divine repercussions...humans should be ruled by our intellect, flaws and all... in a sane, un-extreme and somewhat fair way. Government nepotism was just as sure a sign of decline of the roman empire as was its military anarchy or civil wars. Politicians are trying to create a theocracy and natural selection will eventually deal with people whos heads are in the sand. Eventually ignorance will be a burden even the US economy will no longer be able to bear.
This is sooo Rotten argument that,
"It's better to legalize, tax and carefully regulate an industry than let it flourish with far less oversight in the black market."
And it is made by the people that do NOT have any damn skill in any damn field to make money other than Gambling.
Their revenue? The Native Americans only share a duopoly on gambling because they're able to take advantage of regulatory arbitrage and states haven't figured out that they'd collect more profit from taxes on privately-run gambling. They're no more entitled to it than AWB was entitled to export all Australian wheat or Carlos Slim is entitled to pwn Mexicans' wallets.
And your suggestion to direct revenue from gambling taxes to education is faulty -- that's likely to be a federal tax, and we have too much federal involvement in education as is. (No Child Left Untested, anyone?)
(Full disclosure: I work for the federal government. That means I have a heightened awareness of how good we are at pissing away taxpayer dollars.)
The laws in Leviticus were not supposed to be for anybody after Jesus came and died for the collective sins of mankind.
Sorry, that proposition is made up from whole cloth, and has nothing to do with judaism. The messiah is supposed to be a great teacher and leader who brings peace to the world, and jesus obviously did nothing of the kind. Claiming that he'll do so in a "second coming" is nothing but an excuse.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Add futures and commodities to the mix: Risk/reward ratios, anyone?
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/main.php
Thanks for thinkorswim - bookmarked it.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
So, who wants to write an open source gambling software? We have OSCommerce, why not OSGambling ;-)
Gil.
PGP public key at: http://keskydee.com/gil.asc
Gambling has such a big downside that it's one place I can see the government having to step in. My observations, some based on fact others on conjecture:
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
..says it's back within a year. Double or nothing for within 2?
Frank is a Democrat. But it's Republicans who stop government from interfering with your personal life, trusting the individual to make or break their own lives. Unless you're a "sinner".
Frank is Gay. Maybe he knows something about keeping the government out of people's personal lives that isn't just a campaign slogan.
--
make install -not war
What is to stop me, a US citizen, from opening a bank account in another country, depositing some money there, and using that account for my online gambling?
If the US government won't let me use a US bank or credit card company, there is a whole world out there happy to do business with me, a simple wire transfer away.
Since I wouldn't put it past the crazies in the current administration to try and connect online gambling to terrorism and use Patriot Act clauses against US gamblers, you might want to deposit that money in a Swiss account rather than say the UK, or similar countries run by one of Bush's bitches.
Many Native casinos could be put out of business by this thing, and it would be a shame if those communities lost most of their revenue and nothing made up for it.
You just can't replicate the experience of a real live casino with the experience of an online browser. American Casinos, even Native American casinos, are more than just about gambling. They're an experience that is difficult to replicate. Case in point, British casinos -- British casinos suck. British casinos, by law, can not be above a certain size, and are therefore much smaller than their American counterparts. They have the atmosphere of 7-eleven stores. No one goes to them. No one sits down in them. They just suck. And it's only after going to those types of casinos that one really appreciates the kind of work and energy that goes on into American casinos. The same can be said for Starbucks coffee shops for example, Starbuck shops sell the experience -- not the coffee.
I think that the existing Native American casinos will be just fine. As long as they keep their quasi-monopoly on off-line casinos, they'll be able to offer an experience for Americans that's unmatched in the online world.
Since the WTO keeps ruling against the US on gambling, he should have said
"We need to abide by the trade rules we have forced down the throats of the rest of the world, instead of holding others accountable and ignoring the rules ourselves"
How like the US to continue to ignore the way we screw the rest of the world and focus on how we can encourage our people destroy themselves best.
Yes, as I have stated before I work mostly in the GAMING industry (read gambling) so I have seen the carnage. The younger we get people started, the more addiction we can create. The internet is good for this.
Frank is of the opinion that adults should police themselves for excessive gambling, and the government should stay out of their way.
When I hear politicians saying the same thing about prostitution, drugs, and real world gambling outside of protected enclaves (Vegas, Atlantic City, Indians, etc.) and a host of other issues too long to list I'll believe we're making some sort of progress.
Right now I could get fired for having a $1 football pool at work because, if discovered, the state can prosecute my employer for sponsoring an illegal lottery.
The online gambling systems cheat.... plain and simple.
If not an outright ban, some type of legal protection is required.
How do we know this is not a conspiracy to create a case for more government internet regulation? Poison the environment than offer the cure. It's cold, it's calculating, and it's what's to be expected from today's pathetic lot of politicians.
It's very nice and refreshing to wake up on a saterday morning, read Slashdot, and find out American politicians with a sane view on reality actually still exist. Completely independent of the fact if you like and/or approve of online gambling, softdrugs, alcohol, etc. this is the only way to reduce their harmful effects to a minimum, regulate them, and still respect the choices made by individuals.
I don't know much about Ben Frank's other political views, but he definitely seems more pragmatic (as opposed to dogmatic) than most high-profile US politicians I know of. I think that's a good thing. Where I come from (the Netherlands), the attitude against for example softdrugs, smart drugs, alcohol and other possibly harmful things people can do to themselves is comparable, and from 27 years of experience I can tell this has lead to lower softdrugs usage than in the countries surrounding us, less health issues, less drugs-related crimes etc.
Funny thing is, the Dutch government still has a really stupid and dualistic stance on (online) gambling. Online gambling is specifically prohibited here, as is organising (for example) small-scale poker tournaments etc. The *only* institution that is allowed to offer legal gambling opportunities is 'Holland Casino', which is a government-controlled (but still commercially exploited) casino that has a monopoly on all things related to gambling. This includes, for example, all variants of poker, even though the most popular variants don't even qualify as gambling. Now, over the last few years, playing poker has become a real hype here. Lots of people play it now, and they want to play tournaments against different opponents. What's happening right now, is that small-scale 'illegal' poker tournaments (with buy-ins in the $10-$50 range, or $0.5-$2 cash games) get busted every now and then, and the people entering and organising them are criminalised. This has lead to more people finding their ways to 'Holland Casino' for playing poker, which only offers tournaments starting at $100 buy-ins, or $5-$10 cash games. Just yesterday a study was published that showed a lot of dutch students have gambling debts from playing poker on limits that are way too high for their skills...
The only way these companies can get so large is by lobbying government. Otherwise their growth would be entirely because they provided a much better service than anyone else could, and that won't last for ever (e.g. standard oil was losing market share at the time of the anti-trust thing.) One of their methods of lobbying is to get their business regulated, and for them to write the laws, so presumably less regulation would help in that area immediately.
However, I agree with you 100% of enforcing laws, contracts need to be enforceable and people need to be protected from fraud. I think many people forget about property rights and upholding contracts and that's why they demand government regulations.
Now people will be able to gamble online again while they are in the bathroom!!!
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Doesn't that point apply to anything written by anyone but god himself or jesus, and for which a manuscript exists? It's not like, say, genesis did not go through innumerable editorial rounds...
Clearly. You cannot do that to coffee and expect to make a living out of it.
You just can't replicate the experience of a real live casino with the experience of an online browser. American Casinos, even Native American casinos, are more than just about gambling. They're an experience that is difficult to replicate.
Very true.
"Wine, Women and Song" -- a good casino offers these pleasures and more.
-kgj
-kgj
Yes. The point is to apply historical understanding of Scripture to determine which volumes most likely reflect the accounts of eyewitnesses to Jesus' career, which volumes reflect the preserved writings of the worldly administrators to a Middle Eastern kingdom, or which volumes reflect the worldly politics and tensions in the early church.
I've never understood the contradictions that allow the Christian to give equal weight to the teachings of the one believed to be the son of the Deity, and to the cultural legacy of an era filled with crude ignorance and vile ethnic hatreds.
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People who claim that Democrats are, or are becoming libertarian are wrong. This is a base political ploy to gain the support of Libertarians. I happen to think there are good reasons for Libertarians to hold their noses and stand with us Democrats in the next couple of years, but I also believe that, in the words of our party's founder, "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind" behooves us to be honest when we solicit that support.
Democrats are not libertarian in the sense that Libertarians use the word. Democrats don't subscribe to the "negative" theories of liberty in which liberty is precisely an absence of government constraint. We have a more utilitarian view of liberty in which opportunity plays an equal role. This means we support interfering with the freedom of the powerful when it constrains the opportunity of the less powerful. Most of us recognize that opportunities will never be equal in society, and in fact for most of us equality of outcome is not a goal; but where the physical well being of the median person can be improved; where that person has the ability to better himself through education or culture; where greater scope of action can be offered through greater opportunity -- there we have no problem taxing people or acting to balance the liberties of the powerful against the liberties of the average person.
For example, our philosophy doesn't have a problem limiting the number of broadcast outlets an individual can own in a market. If somebody has a soapbox, we are happy to see him use it. But also see no problem in denying him the right to buy all the soapboxes in town if that would pose a problem for the average person in getting his voice heard. It's purely a matter of utility for us.
This is a divide in philosophy between us and Libertarians that cannot be bridged.
At first glance, it's hard to see any consistent philosophy in the modern Republican leadership. It alternately talks a libertarian game, then paternalistic, then authoritarian. They also are anti-elitist when it comes to every virtue that does not touch on power or wealth: they are particularly hostile intellectual or education distinction. This alone makes them a pratical enemy of the principled Libertarians.
The most consistent explanation of Republican policy seems to be that they, like the Democrats, subscribe to a utilitarian combination of negative and positive liberties. The difference is that the liberties they favor are for the deserving. The deserving are by definition those that can obtain, hold and wield power, or who are useful to those wielding power. Aside from the lack of economic or political egalitarianism, the Republican political philosophy operates much like the Democratic political philosophy. This explains why it is so easy for a Democrat like Lieberman to become a crypto-Republican. The imperative of holding on to power is a corrupting influence.
So, overall, I'd say principled libertarians have little reason to trust Democrats, but very good reason to distrust Republicans. Democratic ideology is incompatible with libertarianism, but it is restrained (in principle) by political egalitarianism. There is one positive reason for libertarians to support the Democrats in the short term: the increasing fusion of private economic and state power. This is a fundamental principle of fascism, and if allowed to continue on this route much longer our country will become a de facto fascist state. Democrats are not immune to this, as I pointed out. Nobody is. But at least we Democrats in principle oppose this fusion. The blogosphere, for all its faults, may give the Democratic party activists some ability to pull our wavering politicans from the brink.
In my opinion libertarians will have little opportunity to sway the course of events from within their own party, not until they can capture at least one Senate seat. If they could capture one in 2008, and if the Senate remains about as divided as it is, the Libertarians would become very powerful i
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I believe the Native Americans are morally entitled to the special privilege of hosting casinos because not so very long ago all their land was stolen by the United States government at the same time they were rounded up like cattle, gunned down like bison, and subjected to biological warfare (specifically, the US army's gift of smallpox-infected blankets.) Casinos aren't a fair trade, but it's basically all they've been given in return. Free-market ideology falls on its face when it is called on to deal with colonialism, genocide, and legalized criminality. To quote the Dead Kennedys song "Where do you draw the line?":
Anarchy sounds good to me, till you ask who will fix the sewers
And will the rednecks just play king of the neighborhood?
The United States Government played "king of the neighborhood" for over a century, and now a small portion of its iniquities are being redressed by letting the Native Americans run casinos. I'm sorry if this steps on your right to open a privately-run casino, but they need it more than you, and since the house you live in is probably, like mine, built on land that was stolen from them, it seems fair to let them take that small right from you in exchange. If you go back far enough, all real estate can be traced back to theft, and in the United States someone's grandparent might remember exactly when it was stolen.
I agree that NCLB is a bad program, but that isn't what we're discussing here. The question is, should online gambling be taxed in order to provide education for impoverished areas. So although the federal government isn't the ideal entity to solve this problem (or to do nearly anything for that matter) unless the people living in these areas would say "no, there's too much federal involvement in our education - we'd rather not have a nice new school built here with enough funding for some good teachers" any (very true) facts about the federal government being incompetent aren't that relevant.
My opinion of the Federal government is probably about as low as yours, however, the question is: is a Federal tax on Internet gambling better than the alternative? And since the alternative is dire poverty for people that "our" government has screwed over since its founding, I'm in favor of it taking some action to right its wrongs. However buffoonish it may be in carrying this out, it will be better than doing nothing. There are no ideal solutions in sight, so we need to go with the lesser of the present evils until the glorious libertarian revolution bestows true equality on all humanity... or just takes us Beyond Thunderdome.
My truck is like a series of tubes.
Clinton was the most fiscally conservative president in the past 50 years. Yes, that's including Reagan, who gets second place. And that's *only* counting non-military spending, so we're not counting Reagan's defense build-up against him.
Bush isn't even in the top five. Even Carter did a better job at keeping spending under control.
If there is a legal, regulated gambling site called gamble.com then I would expect an unregulated site called gambel.com that offers better odds and supposedly pays out more.
Except of course it doesn't. And no taxes, thank you. And the owners hidden behind some sham company in Eastern Europe of Indonesia.
Gambling on the Internet is always going to result in this because by the very nature of it you have no idea whom you are dealing with. And with the veil of secrecy there is no need to be fair and above-board because you can get away with anything.
The really interesting part here is that online gambling isn't banned in most of the U.S. The law in question simply turns state crimes (even misdemeanors) into federal felonies with much harsher punishments.
If congress *really* were trying to save people from themselves (rather than simply protecting Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Indian interests), they'd be trying to ban gambling, rather than making it inconvenient to deposit to British gambling operations.
I used to work in the online gambling industry. They're thieves.
If you're thinking of playing online poker, don't. If you play online poker,
quit, because you're just throwing your money away.
Nobody in the online gambling business plays. That's for chumps.
How do you get an online poker player off your porch?
Pay for the pizza.
What's the difference between an online poker player and a pizza?
A pizza can feed a family of four.
You can opt out of seatbelt laws when you have unlimited private medical insurance extending 100% coverage, WHO you've notified you don't wear your seatbelt AND that reimburses local governments for any additional expense for their EMTs. (The notification is because currently your policy rate depends on you being just as likely to wear it as everybody else)
Because until then, YOU not wearing your seatbelt means that you get more expensive emergency medical care whether you want it or not and affects MY pocketbook.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
I guess if you want to live on the margins you are right. But policy should be based around the 99% case. Very few people will open foreign accounts in order to gamble online. It's not worth the effort. Blocking payments from any credit card vendor that wants to process transactions in the US would "solve" the problem.
Ron Paul's coffers have increased by an order of magnituted and so have his supporters in the last few months. He is about to overtake McCain, and he came in #2 in a Utah GOP straw poll.
Libertas in infinitum
While I occasionally gamble, my concern is that the US Govt is trying to impose US Laws on Foreign Countries by the arrest of Neteller Founders and the demand to major world banks for records of funding transactions from US Citizens. Whether gambling is legal or not within other countries, the US is trying to use it's position ( Economically, financially & militarily) to pressure other countries to comply with their "request". I am Pro-American in most actions regarding the war in Afghanistan & Iraq (Other than I think that they should be more pro-active in their fight against world terrorism), but this stance by the US Government is a worrying issue. The US is our ally, but I can see why the US Govt. is seen as an international bully by so many other countries. If The US wants to deny their own citizens their "rights" under their own constitution .. fine... but don't meddle in the internal policies & laws of other countries.
The hypocrisy of the US Government is a major concern.
They appealed to the WTO when Antigua did something they thought was "against their interests", but when the decision didn't go their way, they decided that "NO, we are not going to abide by our treaty". Is this a Government that can be trusted?
The USA signed a Treaty & are refusing to abide by their agreement.
Does this mean that the ANSUS Treaty with Australia, the NATAO Treaty, The Treaty against the Proliferation of Arms, etc. isn't worth the paper it's written on?
Does this mean that ALL Treaties signed regarding the research & use Nuclear, Chemical & Biological weapons is secretly being ignored by the US?
Am I extrapolating to ridiculous scenarios ... perhaps I am.
But, given the facts of the US Government's actions in this instance (whether you agree with on-line gambling or not) can any country place any credence in any treaty that they have with the US Government?
It gives you pause for thought...