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Government Delays New Ban On Internet Gambling
The Installer writes with this quote from the Associated Press:
"The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are giving US financial institutions an additional six months to comply with regulations designed to ban Internet gambling. ... The delayed rules would curb online gambling by prohibiting financial institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers. The financial industry complained that the new rules would be difficult to enforce because they did not offer a clear definition of what constitutes Internet gambling. They had sought a 12-month delay in implementing provisions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that Congress had passed in 2006. ... US bettors have been estimated to supply at least half the revenue of the $16 billion Internet gambling industry, which is largely hosted overseas."
Its nothing to do with right or wrong. Its just because US gambling businesses are losing money to overseas gambling sites.
The ban was done on "moral" grounds. If its morally wrong to gamble over the internet why do they allow betting on horses etc?
The WTO has repeatedly told the US to stop this (or at least change it so the same rules apply to everyone) after Antigua
complained. I haven't heard anything new since Antigua applied to the WTO to remedy this (by getting an exemption to copyrights
on US goods I believe).
>>Is there any American out there who can explain to me how it's somehow "wrong"
There's been a long, long history of considering gambling to be a social evil. To a certain extent, I sympathize with it, as I had a friend inherit a house, move to Vegas, and a year later have no house. He runs a fish store now, in Bakersfield. (Bakersfield!)
That said, I think the government should only be involved in online gambling to prevent fraud and enforce contracts. (You know, the main reason why government should be involved in any business - enforcing the rule of law.)