The bill's sponsor, Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), said he opposes all gambling, citing its "ill effects on society," but particularly Internet gambling, which led him to draft the legislation last summer. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) attached Goodlatte's bill to the port-security bill to assure its passage and Bush's signature.
Just another form of prohibition, if you ask me.
The ban will not just affect U.S. companies:
Already, several online wagering businesses have pulled their operations out of the United States and some have collapsed, including publicly traded companies in Britain, where online betting is legal and regulated.
The legalities of online gambling are said to be murky.
In the United States, the Justice Department and federal courts are unable to agree on whether Internet gambling is illegal. The Justice Department maintains that the 1961 Wire Act, written to prohibit betting transactions via telephone, applies to the Internet. Courts have disagreed, saying that betting on sports teams over the Internet is illegal, but wagering on casino games, such as poker, is not. And though the Justice Department thinks that off-track and online wagering on horse races is illegal, it has never prosecuted a case.
Poker groups, which contend their's is a game of skill rather than luck, are lobbying Congress mightily for an exemption. Sorry, but if poker is a game of skill, so is blackjack and craps. They all depend not only on the luck of the draw or roll of the dice but what to do with your hand or roll once you get it.
Who's not upset about the new law? Casinos in Las Vegas. Were they secretly lobbying for the bill?
The major casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and on Indian reservations did not take a position on the new law, said Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., president of the American Gaming Association. The group's reasoning: Less casino revenue comes from gambling, as entertainment, retail and other non-wagering spending now makes up 55 percent of the cash streaming into resorts such as Harrah's and Bellagio.
"The guy who comes home and goes to his den and cracks open a can of beer and bets on the Internet is not really our customer," Fahrenkopf said. "We never viewed the Internet as being competitive."
Goodlatte of course played the terror card to get the bill passed:
"All the problems that manifest themselves with gambling, even in heavily regulated states, are even worse on the Internet," Goodlatte said yesterday. "There are family problems, bankruptcy problems, gambling addiction, gambling by minors, using gambling to launder money for criminal and terrorist organizations and organized crime. It does not help our society." (my emphasis.)
When will our Government stop passing laws to protect us from ourselves? When we get these crazy conservatives out of Congress. As one quoted poker advocate says,
"We've proven in history that trying to protect the minority and punish the majority never works," Duke said. "The fact is, there is a certain percentage of people who have addictive personalities [and gamble online]. Are you going to pass a law outlawing online shopping? Or day trading?"
Radley Balko says it well:
his bill is paternalistic, moralizing big government at its worst. It won't eradicate online gambling, it will only make those gambling sites that are incorporated and publicly traded and regulated in countries like Great Britain unavailable to U.S. customers. But the $12 billion per year U.S. customers spend on online gaming won't dry up. Instead, much of it will now go shady offshore sites based in countries less steeped in the rule of law, meaning more potential for fraud, abuse, preying on minors, and involvement from organized crime and terrorist groups. Meanwhile, state lotteries (which studies show are among the most addictive forms of gambling) will exploit the exemption the bill grants them, and continue to spend millions of dollars encouraging their citizens to engage in government-run gambling, with far less favorable odds.
From House Republican leaders' baffling attempts to invoke the shame of Jack Abramoff and pass the ban in the name of "lobbying reform," to Senator Frist attaching the ban to a port security bill late at night on the last day of Congress, nothing about the way the GOP has pushed this bill has been honest. It is the height of hubris that the last law enacted by a party beset by charges of corruption and abuse of power was a moralistic bill passing judgment on the millions of Americans who play online poker and other games recreationally and responsibly.
