Posted on 10/13/2006 5:03:36 PM PDT by KDD
EDITORIAL: Internet gambling 'ban'
Americans are playing poker online? Oh, the humanity!
Of the myriad policy crises churning on the horizon -- entitlement insolvency, illegal immigration and runaway federal spending among them -- congressional Republicans chose to spend the little political capital they have left on an Internet gambling ban.
With brick-and-mortar casinos in nearly every state and card games breaking into network television, millions of moralists found it unbearable that Americans were wagering about $6 billion per year on the Web. That their neighbors might be playing poker or placing sports bets from the comfort of their desk chairs demanded federal intervention. "Ban it!" they cried. "Misguided citizens will lose their homes! Their children will starve! Families will be destroyed!"
Never mind the folly of legislating leisure. (That Prohibition thing was a rousing success, wasn't it? And certainly, no sports wagering takes place outside of Nevada.) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was determined to please his base with a new law before November's election, no matter how flawed or misguided it might be.
The cause was so preposterous it couldn't win passage as a stand-alone bill. Sen. Frist first tried to attach the Internet gambling ban to a defense appropriations bill. No luck. So he slipped it into port security legislation that passed the House and Senate early Saturday. A Bush administration official indicated the president plans to sign the bill into law.
And so no children will be forced into homelessness, their parents now prohibited from using personal checks, credit cards or electronic fund transfers to pay off Internet bets placed with online casinos and sports books. The costly, irresistible temptation of playing games of chance on personal computers has been eradicated. Right?
Wrong. Not only did Sen. Frist have to lard up the ports bill to win passage for his pet project, he included enough exemptions to rival the IRS tax code.
The bill permits Web-based betting on horse racing and for state lotteries. It also allows state-licensed casinos, once authorized within their jurisdiction, to construct Web sites with online poker and casino-style gaming. And these casinos would be allowed to provide links to other states and countries where gambling is legal.
So rather than deliver a "ban," Sen. Frist merely cut off the American market from online gambling sites based in Britain and the Caribbean. Like most heavy-handed regulations, this "ban" is really just thinly veiled protectionism.
"In order to get this bill passed, they (Republicans) sold their souls. They gave so many exceptions that it's now a wide-open area," attorney Tony Cabot, editor of the Internet Gambling Report and co-editor of the Gaming Law Review, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
This Internet gambling "ban" is nothing close to a ban at all -- and that's a good thing. It's foolish to think the Internet gambling genie can be stuffed back into its bottle. Technology is driving the evolution of the gaming industry, so it makes perfect sense that regulated American companies should be allowed to conduct business with their millions of customers through the World Wide Web.
The bill could bring some short-term pain to MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment, which use Internet poker sites to place some entrants in their own poker tournaments. But they'll figure out how to rebuild their qualification networks. The opportunities now available to Nevada gaming companies are staggering in their scope.
"The casino lobbyists in Washington, D.C., thought this was a pretty good deal. It's actually better than that," Mr. Cabot said. "It really opens up the field. It knocks out the offshore companies, and leaves the legal licensees open to take their positions."
It remains to be seen, however, whether the American conservatives who demanded this legislation will think it's a good deal. More likely, they'll realize sometime soon that they've been taken by a sucker bet.
Scuse me, no attainder of blood
no CORRUPTION of blood
I imagine a lot of HiTech RedNecks will be looking into means to get around this law.
Nothing to stop cash advances. Nothing to stop people from charging their groceries and gas and using their cash for gambling. Equity loans, second mortgage, lines of credit, borrowing against assets -- bankruptcy due to gambling drives up interest rates on all these, and that affects ME.
"Read up on them...Your fears are groundless."
I have read them. My fears are real.
The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 is an improvement, but not a cure-all. Treat loans as you would money due the IRS. Start enforcing usury laws and cap credit card interest -- the CC companies will then be forced to clean up their own house, rather than issuing a card to everything with a pulse, including pets.
The NAACP will oppose it on the acronym alone.
There used to be. I'm saying bring it back.
If a drug dealer is using his $2 million house to distribute drugs, he loses it via asset forfeiture. That affects his wife and kids -- an attainder(corruption) of blood.
I'm saying do the same for owed money. Seize the house to pay debts. Why should we finance someone's get-rich-quick scheme?
That's between you and your bank. If they're having to stick it to you to make up for their bad decisions, find one that makes better decisions. You seem to think there should be a federal regulation and bureaucracy to fix every problem in your life.
I just wish they would extend the ban to fantasy baseball and football. I've lost about $100 over the past 7 years gambling my chewing gum budget away on botched drafts and trades. Please Republican-controlled Congress! Save me!!!
You're the one who wants federal protections for gamblers so there are no consequences for their reckless and immature behavior.
Figures. You want the same safety net for drug users, too. Socialist.
Figures. You want the same safety net for drug users, too. Socialist.
You're a career federal bureaucrat, aren't you?
Ah! So we're playing, "Let's guess careers"?
Well then, based on your past postings, I'll guess that you're an unemployed, 17-year-old dope-smoking anarchist, interested only in self pleasure and the freedom to attain it, looking only to society to take care of you when you screw up.
Pretty close?
I'll bet I'm closer than you are. You in?
Can I be "in"?
Here we have advocated a socialistic prohibition on gambling because it drives up interest rates on equity loans, second mortgage, lines of credit, & borrowing against assets; and bringing back an "attainder of blood" via asset forfeiture.
Yet you are the one being accused of socialism? -- Of wanting society to take care of you?
Bizarre reasoning, as usual, typical of communitarian thinking.
Seems pretty bizarre to me, too. Maybe it looks different on the other end of the tax money pipeline.
I don't gamble on line for I have my own machines and when I run out of money I open the machine, take my coins back, and start over again. ; )
Guess that depends on your opinion of God's Word.
Who told you this?
Some people think it's ok to murder and steal regardless of what God says.
The idea we should not have govt enforce basic standards of morality is insane.
Sorry if I misread your post.
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