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. "

Comments

Re:About that, Mr. Frank...

[Anonymous Coward]

The largest of that large percentage being squandered is for the war in Iraq.

The amount being spent on Iraq is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount being spent to ensure that your mother-in-law has gets a monthly government check so that she never has to move in with you. And it's worth every cent.

Republicans Stand for Less Intrusive Government

[Doc Ruby]

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.

Re:Taking things out of the black market

[Mal-2]

The flip side of this is that people need to accept responsibility for their own actions. Fact is, some people become complete asshats when using. The only way legalization can work is if the cost of being an asshat remains high. Some people seem to fall into the logical fallacy that if heroin was legal, then shooting heroin and driving would be legal. Uh, no. Alcohol is legal, drinking and driving is not. I don't see the difference -- use of a drug can be separated from the stupid shit you do while on the drug.

I worked with a guy who got caught smoking crack in his car -- twice. In the same place and the same car, a couple months apart. I didn't see him again after the second time, but when he explained the first incident (yes he remained employed, his father was a big client) I wanted to smack him in the back of the head. This guy was a pretty dim bulb anyhow, but his story reached astonishing levels of stupidity, even for him.

He'd gone off to Carl's, Jr. for lunch, and on the way back he parked in front of our building because he was afraid of the parking valet seeing him. Problem is, this meant parking illegally on a major surface street (El Segundo Blvd.). First DUH... yeah the parking valet was a fink, but I'd rather deal with one fink than unknown numbers driving by -- and pissing everyone off by blocking a lane they expect to be open. Besides, there were network closets frequently left unlocked all through the building -- smoke in there, idiot! They smell like pot for a reason, nobody gives a shit if you smoke crack instead (except that parking valet that fancied himself a security guard, and he wouldn't be poking in closets), and he doesn't have to drive while fucked up. If the network guys caught him they'd bitch him out for being in the network closet, and maybe bitch to our boss. But as long as he didn't break anything, that was about the worst he had to worry about.

One of the network closets was behind an unmarked (and usually unlocked) door on the same hallway as the floor's main bathroom. I wandered into it once completely accidentally and almost choked on the purple haze. Nobody was in there but the evidence said they had been recently. Then again this is the same network company that greeted me with an obviously armed guard when I tried to pay a $10 domain registry fee in person. They hosted a lot of spammers and had a lot of enemies, not that I knew that at the time, but the grunt-level guys were generally good people -- and those guys didn't stick around long. Probably had to smoke in the network closets just to survive the day.

Whoa, there was a point in there somewhere.

Mal-2