Congress Debates Ban on Internet Gambling

[DeclinetoState]

<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" width="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">Breitbart.com (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/11/D8IPT2GG2.html)
Internet gambling is addictive, dangerous and should be outlawed, lawmakers argued Tuesday as the House took up a bill to prevent people from using credit cards or other payment forms to settle online wagers.

"The ease of Internet gambling poses a very serious threat to our families and our society," Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb., said in support of the bill.

The legislation would clarify existing law by declaring Internet gambling illegal. It would cut off payments to betting Web sites and would allow authorities to work with Internet providers to block access to gambling Web sites.

Osborne and other bill supporters contend that it's too easy for online betters to lose money and to become addicted. Critics say policing the Internet is impossible and that it would be better to regulate the $12 billion industry and collect taxes on it.

The American Gaming Association (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22American+Gaming+Association%22&sid=breitbart.com), the industry's largest lobby, has opposed online gambling (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22online+gambling%22&sid=breitbart.com) in the past but recently backed a study of the feasibility of regulating it.As if such a law were enforceable, considering how much already marginally legal sites operate offshore.

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[DoctorDoom]

Osborne and other bill supporters contend that it's too easy for online betters to lose money and to become addicted. Critics say policing the Internet is impossible and that it would be better to regulate the $12 billion industry and collect taxes on it.Leave it to the scum to suggest exploiting human weaknesses and misery as a source of taxes.

Gambling addiction is very real, very common and very destructive—credit cards maxed out, bankruptcies, diverces, families imperilled or torn apart. Ever stand in line behind someone who obviously can't afford it buying fifty or a hundred bucks in scratch tickets? Ever see a state-run lottery that wasn't a bonanza for the pols?

It's the impossible-to-crush myth of easy money that drives people to—and over—the edge. Gambling preys on those who are least able to afford it, those who are already financially stressed and who delude themselves that wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars a year will one day pay off.

Gambling: a tax on the mathematically challenged.

One issue that the US faces is the World Trade Organization (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4723814.stm), which has ruled that "the US must not block online gambling sites based overseas."

Actually, it's already illegal in the US (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/17/60minutes/main1052420.shtml).

[ConspiracyBuff]

I don't like the idea of a ban. Thats only because I bet on baseball games and I do preety well. It's easier to make money then scratch tickets or lottery or the Casino (sports betting I mean). You put 40$ in the account you bet min of 5 on a game- who wins, requires sports knowldge and skill, of course a little luck. But you have 50% chances.You could always go for the Parlay where you bet on a series of three games, you have to get all the games right. Chances are less but reward is greater. I only do that when I can afford to lose. I have made up to 300$ starting from 20$. Of course I lose sometimes, but I have won more than lost. Tell me thats not worth it.
As for other types of gambling only cards amongst friends and for very little money. Texas Hold 'Em is a great game, even for fun.

I will say though, I am on a Poker/Black Jack site that offers free games (which is all I play) as well as games you can bet on. Since the ones who play for real money practice on the free games they often will talk to pple they know about how they have done. I have heard stories about addiction, betting money they don't have and losing so much that they can't pay the bills so they are trying to win it back. I never got the mentality, I see the addiction but I also think that it's just consciencious stupidity. I think "addiction" is a farse basically, Ciggerettes or Crack is an addiction. I know, I know, physical/mental all that crap, yeah yeh. People just need to smarten up and take some responsibility. This would be another one of those, "you can't eat your steak because lil' Timmy can't chew it" In my book.

[Rhino]

A ban is mostly unenforceable.

[Bluemoon_Rising]

Bad idea, bad policy.

[Lubbock]

" . . . A ban is mostly unenforceable. . . . "

Exactly the question I've been scratching my head over. How on earth would a ban ever be enforced? Aren't most of the gambling sites offshore?

Wouldn't it mean having to stop people from making credit card charges or electronically transfering money from their own bank account?

Seems waaaaaaay intrusive to me.

Dosen't make any diference to me, one way or the other. I don't gamble. On anything. Period. If I've got five exra dollars in my back pocket, I go buy something pretty with it.

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[CzechPrince]

Thanks Unky Sam for making sure I don't loose all my money to the big bad party poker monster.:rolleyes:


Washington needs to get a grip.

[jayson]

I could care less about the whole ban gambling here, since I don't gamble but among friends and even that's for fun and laughs, but what I DO see is yet another incursion from the government into the last free frontier (save space itself). I really do support a free internet, because it, like no other before, gives the people the ability to exchange ideas and information in a free (in all meanings of the word) environment.

Obviously, I don't support child porno rings, and yes, those need to be shut down. But I guess this is where things get hairy. If we allow the government to crackdown on child porn (which I am all for), then we are also giving the government the OK to start regulating everything else on the net... they are already trying to do it with the help of w3. For those who don't know, W3 is the world wide web consortium that openly supports a government controlled "meganet" that connects everything in your life from bank accounts to prescriptions, all in one giant government controlled database. These people are the ones who set web standards and ISPs, browser designers, and ultimately web designers follow these guides in an effort to simplify things for themselves. This, however, indirectly erodes at a basic defense mechanism of the net, that being the fact its just simply way too large and too diverse to control.

I can just see the day where the government is allowed to monitor everything you say, every email you send costs money and every website you create requires a license. It's coming, I know this much.

[Naturalized-Texan]

If we want to gamble, we go to Lake Charles, LA, or to Las Vegas. We would never gamble online.

[Riverboat]

Would you be willing to stop others from gambling online?

[Beowulf]

Stay out of it, Washington! If people want to be stupid and gamble themselves into poverty, it's their own damned fault! Don't ruin it for those who do it responsibly.

[Rink]

The ONLY reason they wanna ban Internet Gambling is because they cant get their fingers into the till.

Otherwise our enlightened politicians are whole hog for state, local and federal gambling, they push those to the Max.

Cant tax what they cant touch, and they cant STAND that.

[Gonzo67]

Jus another example of the Nany Government taking it upon themselves to protect us from our selves.

I don't gamble online, but I'll be damned if I feel good about being told I'm not allowed to if I want to. it's MY money, if I want to piss it away, I will.

[DoctorDoom]

Exactly the question I've been scratching my head over. How on earth would a ban ever be enforced? Aren't most of the gambling sites offshore?

Wouldn't it mean having to stop people from making credit card charges or electronically transfering money from their own bank account?Just so. Since online transactions are by definition electronic, American banks and card issuers can be directed to blacklist gambling sites and not permit EFT with them. Obviously the sites aren't going to be switching IP numbers like changing underwear. And IAC it's much simpler to add the new #s to a blacklist if they do it than it is to do it.

As for "rights", there is no "right" to break the law, and online gambling is illegal now. IMO, if innumerate, deluded assholes are wont to throw their money away, let them at least keep the bucks in America, where they're not supporting other countries' welfare parasites.

[TechnoPrincess]

Stay out of it, Washington! If people want to be stupid and gamble themselves into poverty, it's their own damned fault! Don't ruin it for those who do it responsibly.

Exactly, it is just more of the "nanny state". Apparently the American people are babies that must now be protected from any bad thing we might do... :baby:

[Timberwolf]

Just so. Since online transactions are by definition electronic, American banks and card issuers can be directed to blacklist gambling sites and not permit EFT with them. Obviously the sites aren't going to be switching IP numbers like changing underwear. And IAC it's much simpler to add the new #s to a blacklist if they do it than it is to do it.
Yup...just as they'll be directed not to allow certain people wire transfers in the future if a certain "mark" or "chip" isn't scanned first into the transaction.

As for "rights", there is no "right" to break the law, and online gambling is illegal now. IMO, if innumerate, deluded assholes are wont to throw their money away, let them at least keep the bucks in America, where they're not supporting other countries' welfare parasites.
Yes, it is illegal to gamble online in America. That is why there are no online gambling sites located within the United States. When one is gambling online, one is "located" on the server...much like taking a vacation. If that server is in Britain, Jamaica, Germany, etc., one is not gambling in the USA, but in the country in which the server is located. And as long as one claims one's winnings and pays the taxes upon them, after transferring said winnings into one's bank account, the American government cannot do a thing about it because the winnings are legal where they were won.

That's my take on it, anyway....

[Lubbock]

Doctor, I see " IAC " used a lot. Please tell me what it means.

[Naturalized-Texan]

Doctor, I see " IAC " used a lot. Please tell me what it means.
I've been wondering that myself. Mostly, I can guess the meaning of such abbreviations from the context, but not that one.

[Rink]

IAC = In Any Case

Hope I'm correct on that acronym

[Naturalized-Texan]

The biggest problem I see with Internet gambling is not gambling addiction, but the great potential for fraud. With all the Internet gambling sites being in foreign countries, what recourse would one have in case of fraud?

You have to provide a valid credit card number before you can gamble online, so you leave yourself wide open to identity theft as well as the danger of someone maxing-out your credit card before you realize that it is happening.

I don't even use a credit card for gambling in Las Vegas or Reno or Lake Charles, so there is no way that I would use a credit card to gamble online.

[Lubbock]

Thank you, Rink

Three words I hadn't tried in the acronym, and I couldn't put anything in context.