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MA Proposes Two Year Jail Term for Online Gambling
tessaiga writes "The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is trying to sneak a provision to criminalize online gambling. The bill, if passed, would make online gambling punishable by up to 2 years in prison and $25k in fines. Ironically, the provision is buried deep within a bill to allow the construction of three new casinos in Massachusetts to bring more gambling revenue into the state. 'If you were cynical about it, you'd think that they're trying to set up a monopoly for the casinos,' said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Democratic House representative Barney Frank, who earlier this year introduced federal legislation to legalize regulated online gambling, also criticized the move as 'giving opponents an argument against him.' Indeed, groups such as the Poker Player's Alliance, who were previously supportive of Patrick's plans to open the new casinos, have already announced opposition to the bill because of the online gambling clause."
Although I disagree with the idea that gambling is somehow immoral, it wouldn't be so bad if that was the position that was being taken. But no, it seems that gambling itself is fine, it's just that Internet gambling somehow is not. Perhaps the supposed rationale[1] is that it's not regulated the same way that in-state gambling is. But then by that token, online shopping should be banned, too.
I'd be intrigued to see the wording of the bill. After all, spread betting on the financial markets is gambling. Indeed, the entire futures market is gambling. Hell, even taking out an insurance policy is gambling. Which of those will be made an offence punishable by incarceration, and which won't? Who determines which activity falls on which side of the line, and why?
Disclaimer: I make my living through online gambling.
[1] Yes, I know the public rationale is in all likelihood utterly unrelated to the real reason, but I have to at least go along with the pretense.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
The more that lawmakers continue to be in bed with corporate interests, the faster a revolution will come. Why don't you give online gamblers the death penalty while you're at it?
Please read: if you are not brainless.
\u262D = \u5350
It's all about the tax revenue. It's always been all about the tax revenue.
My blog
I'm not from Massachusetts but has anyone investigated Governor Deval Patrick's ties to the casino industry? From a distance, this kinda reeks.
Follow the money; money is the truth drug.
--Richard
2 years and $25k! FFS! Is it me or is that totally over the top. I'm glad I live in the UK where I can enjoy online poker without risking the sort of punishment meeted out for serious crime.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
It makes me sick that I helped this man get elected. And not in just a typical "I held signs" way.
Pretending for a moment that I have no other problems with something like this being passed into law (and that's FAR from the case!), I'm wondering what other unintended ramifications this could have?
For example, I'm a member of a local group on www.meetup.com, a social networking type web site. This group occasionally holds poker playing get-togethers at one member's apartment on the weekends. (Nothing "high stakes", but some money does change hands.) Could this get caught up in "online gambling", simply because it was organized over the Internet?
The bill, if passed, would make online gambling punishable by up to 2 years in prison and $25k in fines.
Because without this measure, gambling fathers will put their families in incredible debt.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
And so-called "victimless crimes" like gambling, marijuana, non-martial sex, etc. seem to be a losing enforcement battle too. At some point the governement may focus on real problems like terrorism, crumbling infrastructure, economic inequality and so on.
Hooray for good old Government Protection. Coal, Mail, Copyrights, Drugs, Gambling...what will they think of next? (Can we make "Vote For Ron Paul" a tag?)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What kind of legislature accepts proposed legislation directly from the executive?
since online gambling isn't regulated, all "bets" are off. a consumer has no recourse if she is cheated, and you can't possibly trust online gambling sites where there's no regulation oversight since there's absolutely nothing stopping them from cheating. i'm all for online gambling, but it has to be regulated to protect the consumers. what this legislation should be pursuing is online regulation, not online banning.
to ensure that gambling in Mass. will be full of corruption than to have politicians involved in it. I'm sure the penalties are just, as is the promise of a ride to the beach with a Kennedy.
I'm all for smaller government sooner rather than later. Apparently, at least in Mass., it's okay to propose legislation that makes you look so corrupt that half the world is reading about you. The throngs of people (Honorable J Carter even) that want to decriminalize things that have been prohibited for a while is getting bigger and bigger, approaching critical mass, yet the US believes it can ban all online gambling? WTF? Prohibition and censorship do NOT work. I wish the US had a government that understood that. Oh, let me add abstinence to that list also. If only god had been so forward thinking as to add an 11th commandment: Thou shalt not legislate morality. Even if Moses had had an epiphany on the way down the mountain... two really good opportunities missed!! Just one little commandment, 5 words, even in stone tablet writing costs, that is cheap.
How much death and mayhem could have been avoided in the world?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I recall reading an article recently where the US is in danger of being fined billions by other nations due to the banning of online gambling. If MA does, in fact, pass this, there may be many world-wide ramifications for the state and additional ones for the country. Doesn't seem a very wise idea when we've already pissed most nations off. And please- 2 years for online gambling? I will never understand it. You can gamble at casinos, play the lotto, or play bingo for your local NPO, but have a poker game at home or play online and you're screwed. State and federal governments need to stop overreaching their bounds on these issues.
Legality: Dubious at best. Intrastate online gaming they can control but not interstate or international (see Wickard v. Filburn). Also could the law be read to include the winning of anything fungible? If so WoW will soon be illegal.
Enforcement: If it becomes a criminal act does this mean the cops will be kicking in doors to arrest? How about using no-knock warrants? The magic eight ball says: "All signs point to yes". Welcome to the People's Republic of Massachusetts.
Gov. Patrick is on the way to becoming an every worse Governor than Romney (who set the bar pretty low).
notice that no one pointed out that devil patrick is a democrat. i thought it was only fat stooge evil republicans that wanted this kind of control over their subjects. i always thought the democrats carried the one true torch of freedom and never did wrong. no corruption in the dnc, no way.
hell, this man may even drive an suv!
I'm not interested in it myself but why is it so frowned upon in the US? 2 years seems extraordinarily OTT for something like that when you could be out in 18months for assault, theft etc.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
This is exactly how the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was introduced and signed. It was buried deep within the Safe Port Act, located at the very end of hundreds of pages of jibberish about how to make America safer.
If they wish to make a stance on online gambling, they first have to decide what is gambling and what's not. Is chess gambling? Is poker gambling? Online snooker? Backgammon? Once they've established this, then we should have a discussion on whether it should be allowed or not.
Personally, I think it's kind of hypocritical to allow land-based casinos, alcohol and cigarettes and not online gambling. Most of the opposition tells us that it's dangerous to allow people to play online because some people tend to play irresponsibly. I'd draw the same line with alcohol - it's fair only to the idiots who cannot control it but unfair to the other part, which is the larger chunk. And if so, why allow land-based casinos at all? Anyone who claims that these will help you from becoming an addict should know that fairly tales like that remain at a theoretical level.
Full Tilt
what about the neighbor and weigh part? :-)
I would like to add a data point. At one time I was asked to get involved in a venture by a Scandinavian company that was said to include a past head of the NYSE on its board. The venture was meant to be a game, not strictly gambling, though it seemed you could in fact win money. It was walking a thin line in a grey area.
People got cold feet and it evaporated as U.S. legislators gave hints that it would become illegal, but it seems to me that there remains a very grey area inhabited by the stock exchange, online gambling, virtual worlds like second life and massive multiplayer games with their own currencies and conversion rates. Games of chance and skill abound in already addictive and immersive worlds.
At the time even experienced people thought the line was drawn in one place but now it is perhaps in another. I would like to note that the venture I mention was not a casino. It was supposed to teach you about the stock market.
I think the definition of gambling these days has little to do with people's welfare. The definition is made by legislators and government executives, and involves a cynical calculation and the creation of a protected and coveted revenue source for a municipality.
Let's look at some history. Back in the day, before Woodrow Wilson came along, the US Senate was completely dominated by industrial interests. They basically bottled up any imports into the United States and from there made mountains of money building up domestic industries. Wilson cracked things open a bit, and broke that old club, but by that time there was so much money floating around that the USA was able to not only easily tip the scales in World War I, dominate industry in World War II, but also finance a public education system including the best universities in the world, establish a string of hospitals and research centers, and, along the way, create a middle class.
Bottom line, there have been times in history where a good bit of local cronyism, if coupled with solid workers rights and a bit protectionism, made a good recipe for economic growth. The deal was simple - really, the big industry guys could get rich and get the government to guard their markets, and in turn they would pay real wages and benefits to its workers. Over time, from Wilson, to Roosevelt, Democrats refined this idea into the New Deal, and as a result, America arguably got rich as all bloody hell.
Somewhere along the way, Dems got a bit too infatuated with socialism, and meanwhile, Republicans switched from being avante protectionist industrialists that made goods and jobs, to global traders and stock people that don't make anything, and that partially explains the mess we're in.
One wonders if the old formula could still work... It has before, and rather well.
This is my sig.
"Gambling is immoral... if they haven't donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to my campaign." Hell if prostitutes had a lobby that would be legal too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This is only in the bill because the main part of the bill is for allowing MA to build 2 new casinos. This is just a way of filtering out competition. If you can have the government force a monopoly position, why not?
did they name the bill "Gambling Enablement Bill of 2007"?
today is spelling optional day.
She's 78 and enjoying her first computer ever, an iBook... How long until her interest in Bingo and other games makes her a felon?
But I suppose online gambling lacks the thrill of a potential strip search and 2.5 hours of detention over an $80 win....
http://wcbstv.com/local/yonkers.raceway.strip.2.565987.html
So the Govenor of Massachusetts is NOT against gambling. Rather he wants to encourage gamblers by making it very accesible, in the State of Massachusetts, by building many new casinos in State, from which the State can draw revenues. But he wants to take away the freedom for gamblers to choose to spend their monies out of State, by extraodinarilly harsh jail and fine punishments if one chooses to gamble elsewhere. Isn't this border line extortion? Has the State of the Commonwealth decided the "mob" methodolgy works for his Government? Also he has seemingly NO intention of helping gambling addicts, rather redirecting them to lose in his State. I am surprised that the AG of Massachusetts doesn't see something amiss in this.
There are unsolved violent crimes against people and property. Why are law enforcement resources being used to stop something that is a vice that most people who are into it can walk away from without any harm whatsoever? Gambling is only a problem for a minority of gamblers.
People do hurt themselves over gambling. I knew a guy who killed himself over it. The real reason he did that, though, was that he had the sort of personality that couldn't tolerate failure. It wasn't even like he was "addicted." He was addicted not to gambling, but to the idea that **HE** was a winner in the game of life.
Gambling is not like drugs or alcohol. Don't give me that excuse that they're pooooowr widdle addicts who can't control themselves.
If (when) the US federal government accepts its WTO treaty obligations and removes the national ban on online gambling, but the US still gets slapped with WTO sanctions 'cos some states won't budge from their local bans. Good be very good news for us in the EU if we get to legally use US IP for free, which is what the sanctions may turn out to be.
There is Business, then there is Government.
They are two sides of the exact same coin.
A government will not allow anyone to get in the way of its easy, controlled, profitable, legislated revenue streams(casinos, lottery, taxes, etc.), no more than a competitive business would.
Sheesh, everything about this proposition is so fundamentally flawed, I hope they'll never get a conviction out of it. Any reasonable judge will see the RIAA lawsuits that have been smacked down because of the inability to reliably track people online by IP and other identifying information and think, "the plaintiffs could not even produce a probability of guilt in a civil case using these methods," and immediately dismiss a criminal case prosecuted under this farce. Sadly, reasonable judges are in short supply. But, then again, so are reasonable lawmakers. I look forward to seeing similar legislation here in Illinois, as my state's economy needs to be more robust to be considered "in the shitter."
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
...in the Land of The Free.
I don't know how I actually feel on the issue of gambling in general, though my gut goes against it. However the fact that new casinos are being allowed alongside harsh penalties being proposed for online gambling seems to kill any reasonable argument for either side. A $25,000 fine for online gambling is just ridiculous. This is obviously not a protectionist measure. It's purely economic and not necessarily in the best interest of the people. The harm of the penalty is inappropriately greater than the harm of the "crime" to both society and the individual. All in all it pulls a heap of credibility from the Governor.
That being said, Deval Patrick claims to work towards the inclusion of ordinary citizens into State affairs. This seems like the expected political dribble, but from what I've seen as a resident of Massachusetts, I would say he is making an honest attempt at this. It may be that he is aiming towards something impossible. Still, the closer we come, the better we are.
Please feel free to voice concerns over this issue at: http://devalpatrick.com/. I am not sure how "heard" your voice will be, but we should at least support this approach to governing.
He's bluffing. Go all in!
Democrats aren't supposed to do this sort of thing!
When this happens those who really want to gamble
:O
1. open an offshore account
2. open an offshore mailbox
3. get offshore papers (for CC auth a drivers' license is just fine)
Effect: US citizens are running around with foreign bank accounts that cannot be taxed, nor controlled. They are sometimes unsafe and your money just vanishes from there.
Then the casinos/Sportsbooks restrict US IPs, because they can be also be held liable helping US people to break the law.
Then people who really want to gamble are in trouble
1. but then some clever folks start up a service to randomly assign offshore ip addresses to the good old US folks. And if you think the sportsbooks and casinos are pissed about it: think again. They do not/can not know that you are gambling from the US, since you have an off-shore credit card, you are gaming from an offshore IP, and you will get your payment via an off-shore payment provider to a most likely off-shore bank account.
2. some even go further: there is an operation in Asia, where people place bets for you, and you can track it on-line. Real time. So you hire someone
to place a bet on your behalf. You are not gambling.
What does the US win on that: nothing. Some players are spending/winning a fortune. I work for several gaming companies (strictly technical infrastructural/programming work, no promos, spamming, anything illegal) and I happen to see bet amounts. My eyes pop out sometimes on the numbers people bet on an event.
When I moved to my off-shore place (where I live) more that seven years ago, I heard someone saying, that gambling was over, because a processor just pulled the plug on online casinos. Since then it is just stronger and better.
Here is a tip for the US: allow people to gamble, and instead of going after legit operations (yes in some countries you pay taxes per bookie, in some per terminal, then in some after your income - so yes, you are paying taxes), go after the crooks who operate casinos that never pay, and books that pay until people trust them, then claim "payment problems" until money racks up, then register 50 new domains, and continue the operation under an other name. These places are a real problem for the people and the industry, not the places where you bet, lose or win, and then get paid.
Anyone else find it strange that offshore gambling sites are less corrupt than our own politicians ? I know I trust them more. The offshore gambling sites need my trust to make millions. The politicians I KNOW are taking corporate money to screw me over. Not just screw me out of cash anymore either, they are taking money to send me to prison now, to make more cash for themselves. Someone should go to prison for bribery.
First, you must understand that there's no casinos currently in MA, but there are two on Native American tribal land which are quite close in CT.
/. cynical responses to politicians such as suggestions of corruption or corporate connection or nanny state or blah blah Ron Paul blah blah or somesuch.
Then, you must understand that Massachusetts has lotto, scratch offs, "mega" scratch offs which cost $20, participates in multi-state mega jackpot lotteries, and has keno.
Then, you must understand that a Native American tribe is currently trying [with the help of a major casino corporation] to build a casino on their tribal lands in MA.
Then, you must understand that MA's left and right oriented folks are generally unified against the casinos, fighting against a likely larger but certainly more apathetic middle group of moderates.
Then, you must understand that due to Prop 2.5 which restricts property tax revenue from growing more than 2.5% each year on existing property -- which is lower than general inflation and gov't cost inflation due to health care costs and energy costs growing upwards of 10% per year -- is putting a tighter and tighter squeeze on local government. Property taxes are the primary way that local governments obtain revenue, necessary to pay their share of infrastructure, education, safety, and overhead costs.
Then, you must understand that the supermajority Democratic state legislators are petrified of raising any taxes any where at any time.
Then, you must understand that Governor Deval Patrick proposed some local options taxes, where a town or city could add an additional levy on restaurants and keep some of that money and share the rest with the state. This is opposed by the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader, making it effectively dead on Beacon Hill. There were a few other local options of which I've forgotten.
Then, you must understand that the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader are very powerful in MA government, and that legislators who buck them tend to find all of their bills dead in committee, don't get any influential committee assignments, and get assigned to the leaky, small, smelly basement offices.
.
.
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So, you've got a financial crunch at the local level. The Lege won't pass the Gov's revenue initiative. As far as casinos go, it's not clear what the Governor wants to see happen.
My guess? He wants the casino bill to fail. He's effectively added poison pills to the bill, exploiting NIMBYism and perhaps now this ban on Internet gambling so that the bill loses supporters. If the casino push crashes and burns, the Lege may have to revisit his proposal for local options. In short, this is way more complex than the standard
Disclaimer:
I live in MA
I am a very local elected [unpaid] official
I was an early supporter of Deval Patrick's campaign for governor
I was a Democratic Party precinct captain
I am opposed to any and all legalized gambling in MA, including the state-run lottery monopolies
Support a few technologists in Washington.
For god's sake! the democrats are right wing, free market industrialists and professionals. JUST like the republicans.
Socialism is national healthcare, nationalised industries, nationalised housing, government control of resources.
The democrats and republicans are two very closely related flavours of free market conservatism (with a huge military/industrial bias).
You don't know what socialism is.
Huh. Femocrats. Yeah, you can use that one.
I'm a Massachusetts residence who's been observing the whole gambling thing over the past six months. I don't know exactly why Deval wants to criminalize online gambling, but I can give you some background into the whole debate.
First of all, why does the state want to legalize gambling in the first place? You guessed it: money. The state is facing severe budget shortfalls in pretty much all areas, but especially the transportation infrastructure (and for you non-Mass Romney supporters out there: remember this when Romney brags about his economic accomplishments. He didn't to shit except turn Massachusetts into the butt of his jokes). Some of the state's biggest cities (Boston, Springfield, Lawrence, Lowell, etc) have violent crime problems and these cities are looking for money to fund the police and outreach programs.
The state is trying very hard to develop new revenue streams by encouraging investment in biotech and green energy. But the problem with trying to bring those industries into Massachusetts is that land/rents in the eastern part of the state (with access to MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, etc) is very expensive. Costs in the western part of the state is significantly cheaper, but you don't have the highly-educated workforce like you do in the eastern part of the space. Also, these initiatives are long-term fixes, and we need money now.
So some Mass residents have been gazing longingly at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut (especially since lots of Mass residents spend money there) and have decided "we want some of that!" Hence the push to legalize gambling.
Of course the push toward casino gambling has created opposition with their concerns. Most of the concerns center around the potential for increased crime - some of the proposed locations (including Springfield) are dealing with crime problems and are worried that the casinos may create more crime, but since the state will be taking most of the money, the city/town will have to deal with the crime levels on their own. This isn't an unreasonable concern - western Massachusetts used to have homeless and public assistance centers all over the region, but they were consolidated by Romney into Springfield. Since western Mass doesn't have an extensive public transporation infrastructure, people on public assistance (and in too many cases, their deadbeat/criminal children/SO/spouses, etc) came to live in Springfield without a corresponding increase in the LEO/outreach budget which help cause our crime levels to spike.
Patrick (or his advisers/aides) spent some time meeting with people on both sides of the issues and researching the expected benefits and disadvantages to weigh the tradeoffs. Patrick finally recommended legalizing gambling at three casinos (eastern Mass, western Mass, and the Cape) after deciding that those three casinos could be prove beneficial, and create manageable problems.
That's where we are. So why the harsh penalties for online gambling? Maybe he is corrupt, but having seen how he kept his composure in response to a brutal campaign waged by his gubernatorial opponent last year makes me doubt that. My guess would be that it's a gift to casino opponents who are worried that unchecked gambling in the state might lead to increased problems in already high crime areas.
I can't say I'm all that happy that these penalties are in the bill, but given the various problems the state is
How I feel about it is irrelevant to the discussion. I put out some background information to help
The "disclosures" on the bottom were my attempt to remain fair to the issue, in addition to attempting to write the actual post in a fair manner.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I've been against the idea of gambling being "illegal" for a long time, and I've never heard a convincing argument that supports why it's illegal. If it's because some consider it "immoral", then the state-run lotteries (not to mention the government-regulated casinos) would be equally immoral. If it's because some people would gamble their whole savings away (and their families, and their friends, etc.), what's to keep them from gambling their savings away on the lottery? Okay, maybe at $1 a ticket you'd have to work pretty hard to lose a TON of money. But what about gambling it away by calling it "investing" in the stock market?
...past present and future, is an f'ing crook. Even JFK was one.
God help us all if Romney becomes president of the US.
I bet someone could walk up to Mr. Patrick, shoot him in the face, and get out on parole in under 5 with good behavior (ok maybe a bit of an exageration because he is the Gov., but I'm willing to bet if it was some random person). Something tells me either the penalty for this proposition is too stiff, or that murder penalties are too lax. Actually, it's probably a mixture of the two.
How else could one possibly interpret a bill that promotes one gambling business while criminalizing another?
It's actually kind of scary -- the only tiny little lever we have to keep politicians in check is their desire to not appear too corrupt. (I realize how laughable this has become, but still.)
In this case it's like they're saying they don't even give a damn if we know for sure they're corrupt. Which to me is a sad progression.
Cheers.
Two years of anal rape, followed by significant likelihood of death from AIDS and/or tuberculosis . . . for the victimless so-called "crime" of consensual gambling??
Does that strike anyone else as being just a bit insane?
Nonaggression works!
Didn't we vote them out of the Union yet?
Here is a list of world's casinos according to Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_casinos I am sure the list is incomplete, but it does show US domination in gambling over other western nations. I am not going to go into the nature of what makes gambling so fascinating to human psyche. It is, however, scary to see how quickly the industry has grown in this country. I did some technical consulting on a casino project last year, and there are two humongous casinos I'm currently working on. They are being built everywhere. Just 20 years ago, most states that currently have casinos had laws against them. Where are these new gamblers coming from? Have we always been this way, but found different ways to meet our need to gamble, or is this a generational thing? The entitlement age... Money for nothing... you just gotta have a little luck...
I used to hate gambling, but the feeling went away with age. I still don't gamble on anything, but I respect your right to do so. You should also respect my opinion on your ability to make rational decisions.
ps. the biggest casino in US is still found on Wall Street. Guarded by men with machine guns.
Is not a direction, it's a philosophy. If you want to call them (relatively) left, then that's cool. Socialists they are not.
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- One of Ayn Rand's villains, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Excessive as it was to send a SWAT team to serve that warrant, the accidental shooting of the suspect doesn't constitute "execution". Labelling it as such is the same kind of dishonest hyperbole that gets bad laws like this passed in the first place.
There is only one reason for a fine this large, and it has nothing to do with morals: protectionism. The fine is well above and beyond what's proportionate to what is, really, a very small moral offense even in the minds of the socially "conservative." It is not, however, out of proportion when you consider the real "crime" being punished here: contradiction of the states' God-given right to your tax money. This is about nothing more than tax dollars, and has little if anything to do with morals, though I'm sure some slimeball politician will try to spin it that way.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
That's what I would like to see. I figure a Slots & Keno web site wouldn't be too hard to put together that would pay out 90-95%. People would love it. And that would eliminate all that nasty regulation that is so expensive.
We could have one day a week where everyone wins once.
"you should be able to choose where you spend your gaming dollars."
but you still have to pay taxes if you want to game, its the law.. have a nice day!
If people want to blow their hard earned money and waste it by giving it willingly to someone who will take it, why the hell must the goverment step in and bitch about it.
They should send SWAT teams into churches as givning money to churches is like gambling for a place in heaven anyways.....
Keep the governement away from my money if I want to use MY money to hurt MYSELF.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
So I could go to jail for two years for online gambling but I could probably steal a playstation or anything else comparable and very likely not go to jail at all. This is backwards how?
'If you were cynical about it, you'd think that they're trying to set up a monopoly for the casinos,' Exactly.
Instead of punishing the gamblers, they need to go after the casinos themselves. And if they're offshore, or outside MA, then too bad. That's outside your jurisdiction. If a person wants to gamble from the privacy of their own home, why can't they? It's none of the state or federal government's business. If he ruins his life and even his family's that still their business. Neither the state nor the federal government, nor even the local government should be telling someone what to do and what not to do inside their own home.
Personally, I think gambling is a tax on those who don't understand how probability works. If you want to throw your money away that's your prerogative, but I don't see why MA thinks they need to step in. Especially since it's online gambling. MA, you neither own, nor control the internet or what people do on it. Attempting to is futile.
Question everything
oh! those evil scumball republican fascists! how dare they tell me what to do with my life. if we had a democrat in control... oh, wait!
It should be obvious except to the most dim of all people that online gambling is at best a, uh, gamble. With no real oversight and no transparency, you have no idea if you're being cheated. Why anybody would bet money in that circumstance is puzzling. At least in the old west and you went into a saloon, you could at least pull your gun out and threaten to kill a cheater.
On the other hand, since it's so obvious, why do you need to "protect" people? Shouldn't it be enough for the FTC to simply point out the obvious and say that if cheated, they have no recourse with the government? In fact, if the government was smart, they'd welcome online casinos to the U.S., take their cut, and then regulate them. But I'd make it voluntary. There would be a benefit to government regulation.
But alas, people want to be protected against even obvious stupidity, so I guess that will never happen.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Anytime anyone goes online is a gamble. What do you want infected/DRM'd/spoofed/phished today?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
People should have the right to gamble online if they want to. What authority does government have to tell us what to do online? As long as we're not harming others, they should leave us alone.
I charge forward recklessly, leaving chaos in my wake.
I have always had the expectation that laws should be reasonable and understandable to ordinary people; naive perhaps, but there you are. Of course, sometimes a law has to be very technical because of the nature of the subject matter, but it should still be something most people would probably find reasonable if they had the required technical knowledge. And while I can't see much merit in gambling as such, I can easily see - and understand, even - that many people are attracted to it and are going to do it anyway; so what it the sense in a law like this one?
Passing laws that people can't respect, the result is that the law will be treated with contempt; look at the alcohol prohibition in the US in the beginning of last century. It played into the hands of criminal gangs in two ways - firstly, since selling alcohol was illegal, it meant gangsters had a monopoly, secondly, since people felt contempt for the law, they were more tolerant of the gans, and less in favour of helping the police. Don't bring justice into disrepute.