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A Blow for Foreign Gambling

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JASKN

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I don't enjoy nor advocate gambling, but this report made me angry:

As a result of the sneaky passage of a new regulatory bill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, by Congress this weekend, several successful foreign gambling sites have seen their value effectively drop by up to 50%... overnight.

Although the politicians in Washington are the ones making the rules, it is actually the US banks who will have to go out of their way to enforce them. The law requires banks to "identify and block transactions to unlawful gambling sites, whatever they are."

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After the law passed through Congress the stock values of the online gambling sites plumeted more than 50%. Now the media is reporting that brick-and-mortar casinos are looking to buy up the sites at a discounted price.

Reminds me of the Phoneix-Durango.

These transactions between gamblers and bookkeepers are voluntary and free of force. It's akin to going to the grocery store and buying 10 pounds of rice. Unless an individual (or individuals) coerces you or defrauds you (intentionally misleadleading of material fact) then no crime has taken place (fraud and larceny are already crimes!).

This is the line that worries me the most:

The bill's chief Senate sponsor was conservative Republican Jon Kyl, who, like Leach, has said he believed Internet gambling was a moral threat. He has called online betting as the Internet version of crack cocaine.

Like with the criminalization of crack-cocaine, Kyl wishes to pull sports betting and poker deeper underground into the shadows of society. Kyl is the symbol of moral perversity, endangering the lives of those that wish to make simple wagers on sports or play internet poker in the comfort (and safety) of one's own bedroom (or dormroom)

Note that I am not morally defending poker and sports wagering as such. In context, simple wagers and fine considering the wagerer and the wageree. A man with seven children living in poverty is not morally right when he gambles his paycheck away awhile his children need clothes and food. But, a college student with a couple bucks to burn or a professional that is independent and self-sufficent can afford the pleasure of gambling even in a moral sense. (Some will say that morality does not exist, that morality is only based on the force principle, i.e. if there is no force/consent, that an action is morally acceptable. I contest this, of course.)

I would like to investigate how much the casino and Indian lobbies have given to Republicans and those that supported this law.

The casinos here in NJ are very influential in the statehouse and singlehandedly ended the state shutdown.

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Yeah, a big part of the problem is that the "legal" casinos have instituted a coercive monopoly with the help of the gov't.

I think another unmentioned issue is that online gambling is not subject to the control of the IRS. So if they can't easily tax it, then it shall be illegal.

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These transactions between gamblers and bookkeepers are voluntary and free of force.

Ah, but aren't you forgetting an important fact? A gambler isn't free -- he's addicted! The bookies are exploiting him! We cannot permit this shameless assault on innocent people who've been caught in the inescapable trap of depravity.

[/sarcasm]

Seriously, though, the expansion of "addiction" has been one of the major tools behind such efforts. There still exists some acceptance of the idea that when people do bad things to themselves voluntarily, you can't stop them. But change that behavior to an "addiction", free will goes away, exploitation enters, and the government comes with it. We now have a group of behaviors called "process addictions", which include gambling, overeating, playing video games, and surfing the Internet.

Here's a link to an article I wrote about a ban on lottery machines in Iowa that discusses this idea.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Spano, what about people (myself included) for whom poker is their profession? You have seemed to assume that no form of online gambling can be moral, although I've raised the question myself in an earlier thread.

Anyone hiring?

Huh? Where do you get the idea that I "assume that no form of online gambling can be moral"? I've never said that.

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Spano, what about people (myself included) for whom poker is their profession? You have seemed to assume that no form of online gambling can be moral,

In fairness, you have to say more than "it's my profession" to make it moral, which I assume you can. A hit man's profession is killing people, but that doesn't make his killing of people moral.

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I'm betting that this aspect of the port security bill is not enforced or is changed / repealed within a year. I'm giving 2-1 odds for non-enforcement or change, bets up to $100 (from reliable customers). If I'm wrong, I'll be totally screwed.
Well, if a whole lot of OO.net's foreign-based members take you up, you're going to be screwed more than just financially.

This is a simple issue for activism. Since letters are mostly just used to "keep a tally", make it simple. All that needs to be clear is whether you are for or against. It's really simple: go to this site. Entering your ZIP, it will bring up your list of reps, senator etc. Say you want to send email, enter something short and clear, enter your name and address, and you're done.

Here's the text I used:

I'm sorry to see that the recent port-security bill included a provision against gambling.

I would like to see foreign gambling made legal again.

Edited by softwareNerd
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spano, sorry ... reread your post and I don't know what I was on because it doesn't seem possible to draw that conclusion from what you have written

rational, as stated, I already started a thread on this issue and didn't want to turn the topic of this discussion

david, I'd take you up but honestly the last thing I need is something else to keep track of. what do you mean by "enforcement" anyway? what would qualify and what wouldn't? what do you mean by totally screwed ... are you invested somehow beyond these wagers? do you play poker online?

even if the government doesn't do anything further, the law is causing harm already

four of my online poker account (including my three main sites) have been closed so far to us customers on their own accord in response to this law

this includes partypoker, the (formerly) largest online gaming website. I believe they instantly dropped to #3 since 60-80% (depending on who's numbers you use) of their customer's were from the us.

apparently 10 states, my state included, have passed antigaming legislation of some kind as well as a direct result of this, but I need to look into this further

neteller, the paypal like service used by most casino's has stopped doing business with customers from certain states because they refuse to deal with the restrictions

Edited by Nate
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david, I'd take you up but honestly the last thing I need is something else to keep track of. what do you mean by "enforcement" anyway? what would qualify and what wouldn't? what do you mean by totally screwed ... are you invested somehow beyond these wagers? do you play poker online?
Did I forget to mention "offer void where prohibited by law"? I'm not really making illegal bets online (lest the authorities come arrest me for illegal bookmaking), so if I had to pay up plus go to jail, I'd be screwed. I am not a gambling man and this law probably doesn't affect me personally (although, maybe some mutual fund that I've got a chunk of has invested in previously legal online gambling, so who knows). But as a part of the larger picture of the proper role of government and the rights of the individual to pursue their own values, this very much affects me.

I do think that there is a good chance that this law will go away, because it does not represent something that the majority of citizens or Congressmen actually want, and it passed only because it was attached by conservatives using last-minute trickery to a bill that nobody could vote against and still expect to get re-elected. Americans gamble enough that I'm predicting separate action in the next congressional session, where the relevant acts can be dealt with apart from the ports package-deal (and a letter to your Congresman will help that along). If gambling were a reviled anti-social activity like being addicted to crack, then maybe most Americans would support an anti-gambling law.

Non-enforcement would be possible by simply not enforcing the law, i.e. declining to prosecute. Prosecutors have significant leeway in deciding whether to actually go after a violator, either deciding that is such and such a case the law may not apply, or deciding that it would be unproductive from a policy perspective to enforce the law.

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There are two procedures in politics that are ruining the government's ability to act impartially and thus ruining the country as a whole and that's the following:

Lobbying

Attaching unwanted legislation to wanted legislation.

This later practice is despicable in that it is a deceitful, dishonest way to get whatever a congressman or a particular special interest group wants, despite popular opposition. By attaching, say, an anti-gun bill to a bill making child exploitation a crime, 'no one' wants to oppose the father bill, so the parasite bill gets passed. What a dirty trick that should never have been legal, ever. How is it that anyone in Washington can, with a clear conscience, allow this kind of tomfoolery to go on without question?

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Mweiss, it may interest you to know that Nebraska permits legislative bills to contain only one subject. Link (at the bottom of the section labeled "Checks and Balances"). I would love to see such a requirement at the federal level, but I'm not holding my breath.

Or we could have what someone I know once said, which is to allow 100, and only 100, federal laws. That's funny, of course, but sometimes I actually wonder if that wouldn't be better than what we have now. :)

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Attaching unwanted legislation to wanted legislation.

This later practice is despicable in that it is a deceitful, dishonest way to get whatever a congressman or a particular special interest group wants, despite popular opposition.

Sometimes known as logrolling, it is indeed despicable. Washington has had such a law for as long as I can remember, and according to a 2003 article by James McDowell in Spectrum (the state-government journal), 41 constitutions have this requirement. It apparently stems from the Yazoo land fraud in Georgia, 1795 (yes, a very old constitutional requirement). It forms the basis of a number of appeals of anti-gay marriage laws.
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even if the government doesn't do anything further, the law is causing harm already. four of my online poker account (including my three main sites) have been closed so far to us customers on their own accord in response to this law

this includes partypoker, the (formerly) largest online gaming website. I believe they instantly dropped to #3 since 60-80% (depending on who's numbers you use) of their customer's were from the us.

apparently 10 states, my state included, have passed antigaming legislation of some kind as well as a direct result of this, but I need to look into this further

neteller, the paypal like service used by most casino's has stopped doing business with customers from certain states because they refuse to deal with the restrictions

My son and his friends play a tremendous amount of online poker on a number of different sites. I understand that they have all been receiving e-mails from the poker sites as well as from sites like Firepay and NetTeller that state online gaming is coming to an end when Bush signs the bill and it becomes law. From what I can tell, these sites are going to cut off their US customers. Given the tax considerations mentioned by mweiss, I seriously doubt that those in charge of enforcement will let the gaming sites and the transaction processing sites fly under the radar screen.

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My father plays poker online. He said that one of the sites was going to shut down, but the other site had their lawyers look at the law and they think that they are ok - because poker is about skill, not gambling. I can't say that I agree, but I hope they get away with it.

Anyway, there might be ways around the law if you have access to a foreign bank account, but I don't quite know how that would work.

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Mweiss, it may interest you to know that Nebraska permits legislative bills to contain only one subject. Link (at the bottom of the section labeled "Checks and Balances"). I would love to see such a requirement at the federal level, but I'm not holding my breath.

Or we could have what someone I know once said, which is to allow 100, and only 100, federal laws. That's funny, of course, but sometimes I actually wonder if that wouldn't be better than what we have now. :confused:

I think that's a great idea! Let's limit the government to writing and enforcing just 100 laws, and they can't be 'catch all' laws. You know it's funny, but in the insurance industry, the State of Connecticut has a $7500 "catch all" fine. That's when they think your firm has done something illegal or something the administration doesn't agree with, and they levy this fine. I thought that was transparently funny.

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