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.'"

Comments

As opposite to making them unlawful ?

[BlueTrin]

... as opposite to making them unlawful ?

I do not understand, if they make it unlawful it still gives the same incentives, isn't it ?

Re:As opposite to making them unlawful ?

[goombah99]

... as opposite to making them unlawful ?

I do not understand, if they make it unlawful it still gives the same incentives, isn't it ?

No because the traditional way to enforce the ban on gambling has been to make all gambling debts unenforceable in court. You lose, you don't pay, the casino can't do anything.

If you legalize it, then it means the debts can be pursued in local courts, your wages garnished, your possessions seized.

Legal online gambling is a bad idea. When casino's open theft crimes go up. With the rise of indian gaming casino's we've done this experiment over and over. It's not arguable that casino's drain money out of a community in a way that is harmful. The only people who gain, are the big mecca casino's that get money from people outside of their local community.

If you legalize it on-line, it will flow over seas. Which direction will if flow? it doesn't matter. All it does is hurt most communities.

Re:As opposite to making them unlawful ?

[Ihmhi]

Games of chance and the lottery are a tax on people who are poor at math, and I wholeheartedly support it.

Re:As opposite to making them unlawful ?

[the_one(2)]

Wow.... you obviously haven't done the math on that statement. Very large tax on people who are poor on math -> people with nothing to lose -> crime -> tax on everybody + general suckyness....

Re:As opposite to making them unlawful ?

[interkin3tic]

Games of chance and the lottery are a tax on people who are poor at math, and I wholeheartedly support it.

Thank you for proving that while many laws are passed for absolutely terrible reasons, there are always -worse- motivations that our lawmakers didn't go with.

Taxes go to the government, where they're at least supposed to be spent on social welfare programs, defense, infrastructure, etc. Online casino revenue will go either to more annoying ads and spam for online casinos or directly into the pockets of it's shareholders. If your motivation is to punish people who are bad at math, at least we could do something useful with that money if it were an -actual- tax.

And why abuse people who are bad at math? If you gamble away all that you have, that hurts your family. You lose your house, that hurts your neighbors. It's really just elitism that makes you say that isn't it? That's pretty sad.

Online gambling is a bad idea.

[ZorinLynx]

It's harder to regulate, and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home.

I'd much rather online gambling remain banned, and we unban brick and mortar casinos across the country. At least the latter can be regulated, brings money into the local economy, and gets people out of the house.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It's harder to regulate, and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home.

This seems like a self-regulating feedback loop, actually.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[Rockoon]

..and creates lots of jobs.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[vlm]

It's harder to regulate, and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home.

So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?

I'm not sure how its easier to get addicted to gambling at home. I can tell you don't have a spouse, house, and little kids, as god knows I can't accomplish any tasks at home anymore. Back in the bachelor apartment days, well yeah, maybe, and in addition to spare time, I also had more available cash to "gamble". D-n-D, watching sports, and MMORPGs suffer the same fate.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[obarthelemy]

Mmmm. The same can be said about all e-commerce. Or all e-anything, pretty much. Do you want to ban the internet ?

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[corbettw]

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).

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[mcgrew]

It's harder to regulate

Why should gambling be regulated at all? Cheating is fraud, that's already illegal. With illegal gambling, fraud is harder to prosecute, since the victim is also breaking the law.

and easier for people to get addicted and gamble away all their assets at home

It's not up to government to keep you from eating too much, drinking too much, or gambling too much. It should not be government's role to protect you from yourself, government's role should protect you from ME. You would like them to outlaw McDonald's because too many people can't help but shove so much junk food down their gullets that they become unhealthily obese? I supppose you want to outlaw World of Warcraft because some people screw their lives up with that? Outlaw alcohol because some people are alcoholics?

If you have a problem with gambling, that's a personal problem, not a public problem and is non of my or government's business.

and gets people out of the house

Dude, this is slashdot. Most of us don't even come out of the basement. HIBT?

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[vlm]

Why should gambling be regulated at all? Cheating is fraud, that's already illegal.

Money Laundering. Oddly enough, I always lose when I play my dealer / loanshark.

Given a free and open market you don't need regulation, since the free market will clean it up. However, the whole point of gambling is working on limited and hidden information. Hence its inherently impossible to have a free market in gambling. Hence we need regulation.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[Speare]

So, are you trying to ban etrade.com and "flipping houses"? Or is risk taking in general ok, and you just want to impose your peculiar morality about playing cards on others?

This is a tempting philosophical generalization, but there is a critical difference between gambling and your other examples of risk-taking. Trading securities has an element of supporting the work of the company involved: you are supporting constructive industry, whether you end up with a gain or a loss on your "bet" in the market. Flipping houses has an element of physical maintenance on the property: it's hard to earn any profit without at least trimming the bushes, and many flippers put significantly more elbow grease into the property so it will command a higher price. In the case of betting on whether you get three Queens in a random selection of cards, there is no constructive aspect. It is for this reason that many of the ancient religions forbid the activity, and as we all know, ancient religions still hold particular sway over the majority of mankind.

You might be able to tell that I'm not keen on the hocus-pocus of the church. Hey, I sell a bumper sticker that says "if electricity comes from electrons, what does morality come from?" Yet at times, I do think that some of the shamans, some of the time, actually were trying to keep most of their flock's creative urges aimed at constructive endeavors instead of destructive and wasteful ones.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[vlm]

They are not the same, Equities are investments, I don't know of any gambling site that pays dividends, do you?

Do you know of any futures contracts that pay dividends? Or 1999 style dot coms that paid dividends?

Financial futures markets are legal gambling...

Speculation is gambling by another name.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[jcr]

Better for them to go broke online, than run up a debt with a local bookie who'll have their legs broken if they don't pay up.

-jcr

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[vlm]

A key feature of gambling against the house is that, over the long run, the house will always take its cut.

Aka sales commission

http://www.flipkart.com/customers-yachts-schwed-fred-jr/0471770892-1xw3frp8bb

"The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers."

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[TheLink]

The difference between the Finance sector and Casinos is that in the Finance sector it is more common for "professionals" to gamble with OTHER people's money. If they win, they get a big bonus. If they lose small, they still get paid. If they lose big, at worst they have to change jobs. If everyone loses big, they get a bail out (and might still get bonuses).

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[mcgrew]

Money Laundering

Without victimless crimes we wouldn't have to worry about money laundering.

Given a free and open market you don't need regulation

Tell that to the people who died of salmonella last year from the poison peanut products. The worst part there was that the regulations weren't being enforced properly. If they had been, the filthy factory would have been shut down and nobody would have gotten sick.

You're against OSHA? OSHA protects you from unscrupulous employers. Had OSHA existed in 1959 my grandfather would have lived long enough to retire. How about the EPA? Before the Clean Air Act you couldn't drive past a Monsanto plant with your windows down; the air was so bad you couldn't breathe.

Even in a free market some things still need to be regulated.

However, the whole point of gambling is working on limited and hidden information. Hence its inherently impossible to have a free market in gambling. Hence we need regulation.

Your logic is faulty, unless you're saying you need regulations to keep the house from cheating. And all businesses rely on some limited and hidden information; that's how you keep one-up on your competetion. Pepsi and Coke rely on their soda formulas being secret.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[nedlohs]

So buying a stock that doesn't pay a dividend is gambling, but buying one that does isn't?

What about buying a stock that pays a dividend with the intention to sell it in the near future without ever holding it on a dividend date?

Those activities should be made illegal I take it?

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[corbettw]

Did you volunteer for your doctor to cut off the wrong leg? No.

Did you voluntarily eat contaminated food (hint: you can't volunteer for something you didn't know existed)? No.

Did you ask that drunk driver to smash into your car at 80 mph? Of course not.

You really need to think about what the word "volunteer" means before trying to say I'm using it incorrectly.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[hedwards]

Electronic gambling is a lot worse than the more traditional methods, even if the game is the same. It's not a coincidence that casinos are trying to switch to electronics wherever possible. They want to speed up the process as much as possible because over the long term, the house always wins, and the more hands a player can play, the quicker and larger the profits are. On top of that without the tactile handing over of chips players lose out on the feed back of how much their really wagering making it feel a lot more like play money than money that could be used for things like rent or food.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[lgw]

You can certainly use the futures market to gamble, and speculators help provide liquidity in those markets, but that's not their primary use, and on average a speculator loses money, just like a gambler in a casino.

There are also people making informed investments in these markets, and they tend to end up with most of the money that speculators lose. For example, producers and consumers of commodities are the reason that commodities futures markets exist, and those participants tend to make money at the expense of the speculators.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[icebrain]

Yet at times, I do think that some of the shamans, some of the time, actually were trying to keep most of their flock's creative urges aimed at constructive endeavors instead of destructive and wasteful ones.

In a similar vein, that's probably true of a lot of the "traditional' religious morals, especially with regard to intimate relations. When you have a relatively short expected lifespan, high infant mortality, a technology level that requires the majority of manual labor to be ivested in agruculture just to sustain the existing population, and neighbors in the smae boat who are fighting the same population and resource pressures (thereby draining large parts of the population from war casualties), you wind up needing lots of people. Any behavior that doesn't further that goal of making more people is rejected because it hurts society as a whole.

Today, with huge advances in agriculture, medicine, technology, and diplomacy, we no longer need to pump out as many people as possible to sustain (or even grow) our society. It doesn't matter if some people don't produce children; others are willingly taking up the slack. Behaviors previously rejected are now acceptable because they are not harming society.

Re:Online gambling is a bad idea.

[mcgrew]

* legalise all hard & soft drugs
* legalise suicide
* legalise tattooing on under 18's

Yes, all drugs should be legal. Yes, suicide should be legal. No, tatooing, suicide, drugs, and alcohol should not be legal for minors. What grade are you in, kid?

Some things need to be regulated because they hurt society in general.

Outlawing is not regulating. You cannot regulate an illegal activity. You can be pretty sure that the drugs you buy from Walgreens are free of contaminants, but you can't say the same about street drugs; you can't regulate the purity of heroin or cocaine.

Sure there'll be a few shills arguing that people are responsible for themselves but those people have probably never pulled a poker addict's limp dead baby from a car parked in 50 deg C heat in a casino parking lot.

Or an alcoholic's dead baby from a bar parking lot. Yet you don't seem to advocate outlawing alcohol. In the case of the dead baby, the crime is child neglect/abuse. That is not a victimless crime, the gambling is. An addiction is no excuse for neglecting or abusing a child. And there doesn't need to be any addiction involved for a child to be abused.

Addiction is a mental illness, and it's not the only mental illness that ruins lives; most mental illnesses ruin lives. And those illnesses should be treated as such, not criminalized.

stock market

[duckintheface]

We already have internet gambling. I gu

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[Tim C]

But what makes that different to the current situation in the US? Is it illegal for US citizens (while in the US) to gamble online at sites hosted elsewhere in the world? Given the amount of spam I get for online casinos (with most of the sign-up bonuses quoted in dollars) I assumed it was not, but I'm wiling to be proved wrong.

Re:At UK sites

[gazbo]

I'll put £10,000 on yes, and £50,000 on no, please.

Why?

[FlyingBishop]

I mean generally, yes, we don't need judges wasting their time with this shit, but this is no time to be legalizing what is essentially a formalized 419 scheme.

If it's online, you're basically guaranteed to lose, because the house can rig the game so easily it's not even funny. In a real casino they at least have to maintain the appearance that you have a chance of winning something.

Re:Why?

[chrisG23]

You have obviously not done any gambling online. A large percentage, perhaps even the majority of online gambling, is poker. When you go to an online poker site, you are not playing against the house/online gambling site. You are playing against other players, and the gambling site gets its money by charging a fee, a percentage of the buy in in a tournament or a percentage of the pot.

Of course there is no 100% guarantee that the online gambling site is not putting an employee that can see the cards in on a table, but that would really net them so little money in comparison to hosting 100's or even thousands of tables simultaneously, and getting their little fee from each of them. Not the mention the damage to their reputation if it were discovered (there is great competition amongst online poker sites.)

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[vegiVamp]

I have no idea wether or not it's legal, not being a USian myself, but the amount of spam about a subject generally bears no relation to it's legality.

Re:Behoove?

[mcgrew]

But I think it behooves the party to be a little more broad-minded on this issue

You need some more coffee, there's nothing whatever wrong with tha sentence, except maybe the dash between "broad" and "minded".

I'm broad-minded; my mind is always on broads.

Stop protecting people from themselves!!!!

[RaigetheFury]

I'm not a democrat or a republican so lets clear that political nonsense up right now. I'm so sick and tired of having to protect people from themselves when it's something that THEY can control. Sure some people may need help but it shouldn't be the governments job to prevent this.

If someone doesn't do research on something they put money into... well... that's their loss. If they are STUPID enough to think that gambling will eventually pay off then they deserve to lose everything they bet. That's why it's called gambling.

There HAS to be a point where responsibility is the burden of the risk taker. "I didn't know" or "I'm addicted" just won't cut it. You pay the price for the decisions you make in life.

This isn't like insider trading, or drug testing. You know exactly what you are getting into simply via the title of what you're doing. I'm so sick and tired of hearing people complain about gambling addiction and then blaming the Casino's or online companies. NOONE forced you to bet the money, you did it.

I do not want this great country to start managing my life choices. If I want to be an idiot and gamble away something I can't afford... then that's MY responsibility.

If you want to have a chance at monitoring things like this then you need to set ground rules that CAN be enforced.

1) Anything over $10,000 must be claimed (just like current customs rules) and taxes applied. If caught not doing so, the penalty is severe (20% of amount brought in) + jailtime/community service

2) Gambling income is considered just like typical earnings. You have to pay appropriate taxes on income. Some people are good enough to make this profitable. Why stop them if they are willing to pay taxes on it.

There is ZERO need to regulate this. People go to Vegas for the experience. There is a world of difference between betting $1000 online and sitting at a table with a crowd around you as you bed $1000 and win. I'd know.

Re:Stop protecting people from themselves!!!!

[mcgrew]

NOONE forced you to bet the money, you did it.

Dude, Peter Noone is SO going to sue you for slander!

Re:Stop protecting people from themselves!!!!

[Zephyn]

"So, who's funding the anti-internet gambling side and WHY?"

The brick and mortar casinos. If people have the convenience of being able to go across the living room to gamble for actual cash, they're not going to arrange trips across the country to do so.

It's no coincidence that the prohibition excludes fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse racing. The brick and mortars have had those forms of remote wagering available for some time. If this was purely a morality and citizen protection issue, why the exceptions?

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[demonlapin]

Yes, it's illegal to gamble online in the US. The primary method of enforcement is via credit card payments; the banks that issue the cards are in the US, so the law can reach them.

Online gambling on Steam?

[argent]

What the Hell is Valve thinking...

Oh, what?

Nevermind...

Online gambling legal

[zogger]

Buncha hypocrites. The whole dispute over online gaming is similar to the war on some drugs. Legal online gambling

Some people make money, others lose a lot. Some can get quite addicted to it and go really bust, and suffer all the social ills they worry about with online poker or whatever other game.

    And we have never had any big economic meltdown from online poker or blackjack, but we sure as heck had a major problem with credit default swaps and so on "gaming", including the use of bots for gambling with massive bets that are large enough to move the markets themselves, plus crony gambling insiders being shuffled into and out of the official currency creation/interest setting and so called "regulation" part of that scene.

Let Vegas compete with the Cayman Islands

[drumcat]

I think the sooner, the better. Solid competition from USA-based casinos would allow for a well-regulated, well-run environment. Even Reservation Casinos would do well. Why? Only US-based casinos could offer incentives to players to come to their hotels and restaurants. If Caesar's offered their player-points to players away from the casino, they'd be able to make money without a customer there, but then when they have some points, they can come in and take care of them. Customers will want to go, and will inherently trust domestic bookmakers more than offshore. Just ensure that all online-gambling is FEDERALLY taxed. Get something out of it, please. Tax the stupid.

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[wurble]

One of the problems with overseas casinos is lack of oversight. With no oversight, there's a very good chance that the casino you are logged into will cheat. After all, why not? What have they got to lose? It's not like you can report them to some authority. Heck, even online poker they can throw in a house hand that wins in addition to taking a cut of the pot officially. Nothing to stop them.

So what does legalizing it in the US get? It allows for oversight. Sure some places will break or bend the rules, but there will be risk in that for them so it's less likely. At the very least it wouldn't likely be rampant like it is with overseas online casinos. Any online casino based in the US would be regulated by local, state, and federal gambling boards. These boards would work to ensure payout percentages, and check for cheating. it'd be tougher than regulating brick and mortar casinos, but some oversight and regulation is better than none.

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[mcgrew]

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.

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[wurble]

Nice straw man.

I was arguing that without any disincentive, casinos will cheat. Then you said casinos can make money without cheating. Where in my post did I say that casinos can't make money without cheating? I wasn't talking about whether or not a casino can make money without cheating, I was talking about reasons why a casino would NOT cheat. Casinos are businesses. The purpose of a business is to make money. More specifically to make as much money as possible. A simple risk benefit analysis will clearly show that if there are no repercussions for cheating, then it is in the casino's best interest to cheat. They will find the optimal balance between cheating and playing fairly to keep players playing but steal as much as they can from them.

In Vegas, it is rare for casinos to cheat because the penalty for doing so and the likelihood of being caught are both high. This risk outweighs any potential increase in revenue. So by and large, they don't cheat. The rules are fair and clearly posted for all to see.

But, if you own an online casino, why in the world would you play fair? Why wouldn't you cheat? There is no risk of being caught and no penalty if you are caught. The reward however is greatly increased income over what you already make. Money is good, more money is better. The only thing you have to worry about is word getting around that you cheat and thus driving away players. With carefully crafted cheating combined with some astroturfing and shills, you can easily avoid that.

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[Nadaka]

And in vegas there is a massive industry around the process of verification of the accuracy of the odds and ensuring that the house does not stack the odds below the prescribed limits and laws about how they operate.

Re:Legalizing it just moves it overseas

[pluther]

That's true just about anywhere.

The first time I was in Eugene, Oregon, I was looking for a bottle of rum at about 9 at night.

I went to two different stores before discovering that you can't buy rum in a grocery store in Oregon. After learning of the existence of specialized liquor stores, I was walking downtown in search of one. I asked several passersby if they could give me directions.

The only ones I could find were closed.

In the end, nobody could help me find rum.
But three different people offered to sell me pot, and one offered LSD.