The Absurdity of Congress's New Ban on Online Gambling.

| Online Gambling | HOME | Technorati Profile |

Joel Stein has a (very long) comment =sometimes known as an article= about the new US law on Internet gambling; Joel does not gamble and is pretty upset by the new law:

We've extracted only a few of his comments for you:

"t breaks my heart when the greed our nation is famous for gets trumped by the religious posturing we were founded on. It's a horrible conundrum. Either we give up the tax receipts on the $6 billion that Americans spend gambling online, or we let people do whatever they want with their own money. It's like making Poland choose between scowling and yelling.

So we've decided to forfeit all that income — almost enough to let us invade a very small Middle Eastern country, or at least an emirate — to foreign governments. Within 10 years, all the world's great bridges to nowhere will be on the Isle of Man. .......

At a time when giving up free tax revenue seems particularly insane, the Senate was smart enough to bury the new law in a bill aimed at enhancing port security. Senators didn't see the irony of linking legislation that takes away some of our freedoms with legislation about protecting our remaining freedoms from terrorist attack. <---- we think they ignored it :)

Legislating vice never works, mostly because vice is a lot of fun. The laws wind up being weakened by so many inconsistencies — you can gamble on a boat permanently docked a few feet off the riverbank as long as it pretends to sail every 15 minutes; you can drink in public as long as it's covered by a brown bag; you can't clone stem cells but you can clone Kelly LeBrock — they make us lose respect for the law in general.

So, as more people gamble online, the government will eventually have to find a way to back down without looking stupid. The obvious solution is to borrow the Indian casino reparations idea and allow gambling sites to be run by released Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Not only would the profits erase any bad feelings, the former detainees would be great at running poker sites. After all, four years of water-boarding is the perfect training for having to listen to endless stories about bad beats."

John Stein is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, he can be reached at: jstein@latimescolumnists.com

Wired News Visitors Comment on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA)

Online Gambling HOME Technorati Profile


Wired.com News visitors comment angrily on the US House ban on internet gambling. The new Act passed on Oct. 13th, 2006 and signed later by George Bush has brought about some pretty angry comments from US citizens.

We are giving a few samples here:

Commenter 1:
"What'd you expect? It's our own fault for voting these neo-cons into office. No matter, Democrat or Republican, they all have the same agenda: stay in power and control our lives. This reminds me of China's policy of blocking certain web sites. Pretty soon any web site that is not based in the U.S. and is bad mouthing the U.S. Government, will be blocked (if they aren't already)." Submitted by buddyedgewood on 07/12/06 2:57 EDT

Commenter 2:
"It doesn't get much clearer than this if you're looking for a reason to slap the hypocrite label on our goverment. Someone please tell me how horse racing or state run lotteries are okay but playing poker isn't?

Oh yeah, Kentucky must have had some great powerful lobbyists pushing the Derby and here in PA we pass the lottery off by saying "proceeds benefit senior citizens."

I say, let people to their own devices. If they want to run rampant with gambling then so be it. No one tells a drunk he can't be a drunk; no one tells a warmonger he can't be a warmonger.

End sarcasm tag." Submitted by clicknathan on 07/12/06 1:55 EDT


Commenter 3:
"John Kindt - jkindt@business.uiuc.edu (217) 333-6018" Submitted by bronskrat on 07/12/06 4:03 EDT

Apparently, John Kindt at the University of Illinois had nothing to say and left his email - twice; we were wondering if he was trying to tell everyone to contact him on the issue.