Slashdot Mirror
Push To End Online Gambling Ban Gains Steam
The Washington Post updates a story we discussed last spring about a push in the Democratic-controlled congress to legalize some forms of Internet gambling in the US. "Partly bankrolled by offshore gambling companies, the campaign has already persuaded the Obama administration to delay enforcement of a 2006 law cracking down on Internet wagers. ... The federal government, which rarely prosecutes online gambling, would net billions of dollars in tax and licensing revenue if it were legalized, proponents say. ... The outlook on Capitol Hill, however, is uncertain given a slate of unfinished business... [and] nervousness among Democrats about November midterm challenges. ... [A politically conservative poker player said] 'There's a part of the party that always believes this isn't something people should do. But I think it behooves the party to be a little more broad-minded on this issue.'"
1) Online gambling is no more difficult to regulate than brick-and-mortar casinos. If it were, you wouldn't have sports books and race tracks across the country taking wagers from people who are not onsite. Allowing the same thing to happen from someone's home is just a difference of degree, not of kind.
2) By making it legal, you make it possible to enforce monitoring of behaviors. Since players in the US would have to provide their SSNs for tax purposes, a central database of players could be maintained by the government (it would pretty much have to exist, again for tax purposes). That same database could be used to spot problem gamblers and steer them towards help. (Note that I personally am against this idea, but recognize it's inevitability.)
3) There is no third point.
4) I second the call for unbanning gambling in more areas. I live in North Texas, and the police in most of the towns here spend way, way too much time raiding private poker rooms, when they should be focusing on crimes with actual victims (if you voluntarily take part in something, by definition you cannot be a victim).
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
It's like if we legalized pot smoking in K-12 school.
Ironically, it's easier for a twelve year old to buy pot than it is for me to. As an adult, I could be the Secret Police ("undercover"), but not a twelve year old.
You can buy pot in any high school, but not beer. That should tell people something about their misguided drug laws, which cause the very problems they purport to solve. The same goes for gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes.
Free Martian Whores!