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.'"
... as opposite to making them unlawful ?
I do not understand, if they make it unlawful it still gives the same incentives, isn't it ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
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.
We already have internet gambling. I gu
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
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.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Mmmm. The same can be said about all e-commerce. Or all e-anything, pretty much. Do you want to ban the internet ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
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 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?
Free Martian Whores!
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.
Free Martian Whores!
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.)
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.
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.
What the Hell is Valve thinking...
Oh, what?
Nevermind...
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.
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."
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
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.
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.
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!
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.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.