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Minnesota Latest To Try To Block Gambling Sites
BcNexus writes "A story is developing that the state of Minnesota is contacting ISPs with a request to block about 200 gambling sites online. Minnesota is claiming authority to do so under a 1961 federal law, apparently the Federal Wire Wager Act. There are a couple interesting aspects to watch as this unfolds. Will the ISPs cooperate or will they argue about applicability to casino games, as other have? Will Minnesotans lose their money or access to their money in escrow accounts like the state is warning will happen?"
Is it even legal to use gambling sites in states where it's illegal to gamble???
We gamble every time we buy stock, how is this any different than on a poker table. Somehow, I don't see the "fairness" in this. Personally, I think the odds are better at Black Jack than on Enron.
And what about those sites that lets us play with "chip count" verses real money - are they going to be banned as well?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Prohibition doesn't work. Proxies make censorship such as this woefully ineffective at doing what they want it to. Free speech trumps their nanny state. Waste of money during a recession. The flaws are numerous and the sheer quantity of capital likely diverted from productive uses in order to enforce morality is offensive.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
If Minnesota already has some form of state-run gambling, then I understand (but don't codone) their motivations for attempting to ban online gambling. However, if gambling is totally illegal in the state, then I have no idea why they would want to ban the practise. What would they stand to gain?
Does the state even have the authority to do this? Internet access is presumably under the jurisdiction of the federal government and the FCC.
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According to the act cited in the original post:
"In analyzing the first element, the legislative history[60] of the Wire Act seems to support the position that casual bettors would fall outside of the prosecutorial reach of the statute. During the House of Representatives debate on the bill, Congressman Emanuel Celler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated "[t]his bill only gets after the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets. . . It does not go after the causal gambler who bets $2 on a race. That type of transaction is not within the purvue of the statute."[61] In Baborian, the federal district court concluded that Congress did not intend to include social bettors within the umbrella of the statute, even those bettors that bet large sums of money and show a certain degree of sophistication.[62] "
IANAL, but I would say from that statute that it is not illegal to gamble or to use gambling cites to gamble. It's illegal to be a bookie (sp?) or facilitate organized gambling as a business. The sites themselves my be illegal, but the users seem to be okay?
No?
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
Time for a voter revolt in Minnesota. Throw all of these clowns who want to run every aspect of your lives out and start over.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
People that say games like online poker are the same as gambling simply don't understand online poker. Over the long run (hundreds of thousands of hands), variance will no longer be a factor and the better players will win. It's similar to the stockmarket, and definitely a better investment then a lottery ticket. Look at communities like twoplustwo.com where thousands of players talk strategy and learn about the game, it's not gambling.
5 to 1 odds they have to back down within a week.
I work in a convenience store--one of many clerk jobs I've had, and lemmee tell ya, the state does whatever it can to make sure people don't infringe on their territory. They outlawed slot machines in bars, clubs, etc. years ago.
The interesting part is that people have found a way around it. We HAVE a machine in our store, but it's a "Skill Game". Instead of it being a chancy slot-game, you win on every spin by tapping a wild option on the screen, making three fruits/whatever else in a row. Most of the time it's a lame old two cents, but that's how they've gotten around it. It's 'skill'... y'know. Tapping a screen=deciphering the text on the Antikythera Mechanism.
So if these online gambling sites can find a loophole, the state is boned. But they (the online gaming people) will probably have to put up a disclaimer on their site, saying that it's not linked to the state. That's what the machine guys had to do in our store.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
They want their hair brained scheme back
Yeah, gambling is stupid, and maybe some people need a Nanny to protect them.
But couldn't we get busy addressing our country's *real* problems?
That's good for the end gambler, but what about the ISP? They are sort of in a gray zone between the two. Obviously they aren't making direct benefit from the gambling, but I'm sure someone could make an argument that they are acting as a facilitator (whether that argument would actually hold up, I doubt it).
What an embarrassment to MN. I hope who ever is leading this charge is ultimately fired and kicked out of the state.
Prohibition doesn't work. Proxies make censorship such as this woefully ineffective at doing what they want it to. Free speech trumps their nanny state. Waste of money during a recession. The flaws are numerous and the sheer quantity of capital likely diverted from productive uses in order to enforce morality is offensive.
While I agree with your observation, cut away all the moral and ethical bullshit "justifications", and you'll come to the bottom line as to what is really driving this. It always comes down to someone feeling like they're being robbed. In this case, likely state officials feel as if they're not getting their "cut", or this is somehow cutting into other revenues.
The world has changed.
This law is irrelevant to the current reality.
You can censor the hell out of your citizens (like China) or you can allow them to participate in a free and open internet, not both. Unless every country on this planet agrees to this outdated law, enforcement will be almost impossible.
The only thing they will do is turn their citizens into criminals.
Minnesota your only choice is to either disconnect from the internet or accept that you can not control it.
Of course to truly disconnect you would have to ban all forms of communication except for snail mail and the pony express. No phones, satellite dishes, cable, etc...
"You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." - Morpheus
Prohibition doesn't work. Proxies make censorship such as this woefully ineffective at doing what they want it to. Free speech trumps their nanny state. Waste of money during a recession. The flaws are numerous and the sheer quantity of capital likely diverted from productive uses in order to enforce morality is offensive.
There are very powerful Native American tribes in Minnesota--particularly around the Twin Cities. I should state that having lived there for 21 years, I never once heard of anything negative from them ... until now. I think this may have more to do with ensuring that their clientele (casino gambling is only legal on Reservations and Native American run businesses) remain faithful to their facilities. Having played a little Full Tilt poker myself, I think they may have noticed a tiny drop in profits in the past decade due to the internet.
I have no evidence linking this but I think that everyone knows this won't stop online gambling in the state. I think this may just be effective lobbying of another interest group to protect its profits.
To give you an idea, every adult member of the tribe (Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota) that owns Mystic Lake near the twin cities was paid out $400k in 1994. It would be in their interests to keep the surrounding area contributing to that sum.
My work here is dung.
I just submitted this actually...oh well, I'm just glad it made it up here even if I didn't get the credit.
The fundamental problem is that big business likes big government because big government can regulate and legislate in favor of big business. Online gambling is "illegal". Go back and look at the sponsors and co-sponsors of the bills who made it illegal, and then look at their largest donors. Guess who? Brick and mortar casinos, and Indian tribes....imagine that.
And when the utility companies are government-granted monopolies, then they are subservient to big government too. Utilities should be forced to compete in the free and open market without government subsidies or other forms of market insulation from bad decisions.
This is exactly a case which highlights why the government should be small and limited at all levels; when government gets big it inevitability restricts freedom either inadvertently, or on purpose either for its own ends or at the bequest of special interests.
The slippery slope argument here is paramount too because having a State government forcing ISPs and telcos to block specific sites sets a VERY dangerous precedent! In fact I consider this outright censorship because what's illegal about visiting a gambling website, even if one doesn't use the site to gamble.
Not to mention that making online gambling illegal violates one's right to contract which is inherent in a free society. The Constitutionality of this is questionable at best.
Libertas in infinitum
Ok, I was going to let your post slide because I know where you are coming from but...just to be clear...
Stocks and gambling are NOT equivalents. Not even close. When you buy a stock, you own a piece of a company. As in, you own it just like you own a bike or a computer or any other asset in your house. You have (some) legal rights and some "claim" on future earnings. That's what stock, aka common equity, represents.
Additionally, the price of stocks is determined "by the market". In other words, all the buyers and sellers of stock determine the prices as they go along based on the value that they subjectively assign to each stock. That's the market we are speaking of and that's why the prices move. For every sell, there is a buy. And for every buy, there is a sell. The price is arrived at by this process and this process alone. In other words - it is not random.
Wayyyyyy different than gambling. Gambling is random and even worse, the end results (risk/reward profiles) are heavily skewed toward your competitor (the house). Stock price moves are determined by the market. Just a bunch of buyers and sellers agreeing on the price - but it isn't random, like gambling.
Ok, I have to go take the stick out of my ass now....carry on. Thx.
Newest link to be blocked... Google's Feelin Lucky button!! Lobbyists believe this poses too much risk and could become habit forming and addictive.
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
I live in Minnesota, I do not gamble online, but this is as stupid as it gets. There are a small handful of Indian Casinos in the state. Pressure from the tribes maybe? It just can't be "for the children". Guess I need to start making a few calls and sending a few emails.
The common carrier "shall discontinue or refuse, the leasing, furnishing, or maintaining" when notified in writting that "any facility furnished by it is being used or will be used for the purpose of transmitting or receiving gambling information". It means they have to cut off subscribers or any permanent circuits and the like, if they know that *those* specific facilities are being or will be used for gambling.
Nice try (actually quite lame), but the plain language of the law says no. They don't have any authority to block specific sites that are not being serviced by the common carrier. They may think that's the intent of the law, but courts nowadays have a big thing for the "plain language" of the law as it's written.
Minnesota is now going to Ban people from driving over the border to gamble in Iowa or Wisconsin.
You think like a ReThuglican Jew
I personally have zero problem with gambling being legal, so don't take this as an argument against it.
But there is another key difference between casino gambling and stocks, besides the ones others have mentioned: averaged over time, gambling loses you money and stocks earn you money. Gambling always has a house advantage; wouldn't exist if it didn't. Stocks, on the other hand, have a positive ROI when averaged over several years. Pick any stock index you like - it's nearly impossible to find a 10-year span where it has lost money, and IIRC it *is* impossible to find a 20-year span where it has lost money**.
** Citation needed, but this has been bandied about as fact for so long in the financial industry that I believe it is actually true.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Each of those elected members should take a fist full of $50 bills and go th their local highschool that has blocked sites. Then give $50 to each student who can access one of those blocked sites. They of course will be broke in no time and just may notice the futility of their ideas.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
States rights is an 18th century anachronism. This is especially true in the 21st century internet age. How can Minnesota possibly enforce this? The boundary line between Minnesota and Wisconsin means nothing in 2009.
If the phone companies cannot be charged as as facilitator in regardes to prostitution and may other crimes initiated and or conducted over the phone the neither can the ISP. Mind you if the ISP can be charged then so can the phone company as well as whoever owns the lines and rights of way. Which means the govenment itself could be charged.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
So where do sites like the Chicago Board of Trade fit in?
There you bet on the future price of a stock by buying put and calls, the simplest of derivatives on assets or commodities.
And insurance, and ...
Proxies exist. If you start forcing ISPs to block stuff, all you will do is create a standard market for proxy services. Then you lose the ability for law enforcement to track down crimes as the most popular proxies will be ones outside the US that keep no log information.
Read it more closely:
The second exemption "was created for the discrete purpose of permitting the transmission of information relating to betting on particular sports where such betting was legal in both the state from which the information was sent and the state in which it was received."[69]
So betting is illegal in states where it is illegal. Using the internet to place a bet does not circumvent the law; it's still illegal. Betting is only legal via the internet in states that say betting is legal.
From the quoted source:
Subsection (b) of the Wire Act sets forth exceptions, also known as a "safe harbor" clause and provides: ......
[(2)] for the transmission of information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on a sporting event or contest from a State or foreign country where betting on the sporting event or contest is legal into a State or foreign country in which such betting is legal.
so if you are wagering on the server site, where it is probably legal to do so, you are not covered by the Act.
IANAL, but it seems that this is almost always the case. Because users have already created accounts and transferred money to them. The money is therefore where the server is. And the betting takes place there, legally. Which makes it excepmt from this law.
You make a good point, but I don't think what you added changes anything about what I said. Betting where it is illegal is illegal. But the act presented by the state doesn't go after small time casual betting folk.
The fact is that the act itself should not be applicable to what Minnesota is trying to do. The act does not care about casual gambling. The act is only interested in those that are "the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets." It might be illegal per the state, but that particular act (the state's basis for their case) does not apply to the users of the websites. The users are the casual gamblers that were specifically excluded in one of the opinions (see my previous post).
That being said, someone else pointed out that the ISPs may or may not be breaking the law according to the act. Are they the ones taking / laying off bets? I don't think so. The ISPs are part of the wire. They are not the criminal. Perhaps some other statute / act should have been presented by the state. As it is I see no way for them to use this to acheive their goal. Of course take my opinion with a grain of salt. I am programmer not a lawyer. But if I were a betting man...
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
discuss
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
OK, so let's assume we have a 100% honest online casino. How does someone go about verifying that? How about a 100% dishonest online casino that pays out to shills and family members only. How would someone find out about that as well?
Do you like the idea of casino operating in the US? If so, they are subject to all sorts of regulation and oversight. Nothing like a completely unregulated online casino. The casino in the US pays lots of taxes, which the online casino does not. Sounds like the brick-and-mortar casino has no chance, no do they?
Short answer is that allowing unregulated online casinos to operate will absolutely drive taxed and regulated casinos out of business, utterly. So of course they are going to fight it because if online casinos are allowed to operate it is the death of the others.
Regulation is equally impossible. how would someone verify an online casino? They could inspect one set of servers never knowing about the "other" set in a different (and indifferent) country. About the only thing that could be done would be to continuously monitor all traffic and transactions. Which still leaves open the "other server" problem. So regulation is likely impossible. Taxation is likely impossible as well, for similar reasons.
Sounds like there is a pretty simple choice. Online unregulated or physical, regulated casinos.
No, I don't know how you shut online casinos down. But I am sure that if you don't prevent people from accessing them in any way the Indian tribes will be back on welfare in 10 years. Las Vegas might survive, but Atlantic City and the riverboats will be gone. Without regulation and heavy taxation the online casinos can (potentially) offer bigger payouts, and that is what people are looking for.
I'd say the physical casinos have a real problem, and there is nothing they can do about it except go out of business. Quickly, while there is still come cash left.
Well there goes Norm Colman's "Donate" button on his website!
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I bet they can't do it. Sure they could block it for the majority of users, but if this catches on and more states try to block things how long before someone offers VPN / proxy / ect .... what are they gonna do .. block vpn too ? Ha ha.... whatever... let em TRY.. If your trying to get more tax dollars... this ain't the way to do it... it won't work. Spend your time and taxpayers money on ANOTHER way to get more taxpayer money.
I look at porn.
I play games online.
I gamble a little online.
I eat fast food.
I drink alcohol.
I used to smoke "something" -- the day it becomes legal, I'm BACK!
Why does anyone else care what I do with
a) my money
b) in my home
provided it doesn't harm any one else or any one elses' property without their approval?
BTW, this is the libertarian mantra. We don't want government to protect us from ourselves AND all those rights specifically not given to the federal government are reserved for the states.
These gambling sites don't exist in the USA. They are out of the country, so USA laws don't apply. A treaty could be signed between countries, but why would another country agree to collect taxes for the USA/Minnesota?
OTOH, Minnesota could change their law to require anyone using these foreign gambling sites to pay taxes, but policing that will be nearly impossible. Many states have sales tax laws that are ignored with online purchases every day. My state has that law and I'll admit that I've never paid them sales tax for online purchases.
I'm not Canadian. I'm an American citizen.....
Maybe you should go to Canada, eh?
To all Slashdot readers who care about freedom of speech: I've made a petition about this draconian abuse of power here. Please read it over and add your signature if you agree about it.