Online Gambling: Katy Bar the Door!
From the good, good people at the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Online Gambling: Oh My Goodness, We Must Protect the Children!
A. BARTON HINKLE
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Jul 13, 2006
There are several reasons the House passed Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte's bill to crack down on Internet gambling. Unfortunately, there are no good ones.
Congressmen might support the Good- latte-Leach Internet Gam- bling Prohibition Act (co- sponsored by Iowa's Jim Leach, as well as by Virginia's Rick Boucher) out of a moralistic belief that gambling is wrong -- except that the bill makes exemptions for state-run numbers rackets (lotteries) and for gambling on horse races. Efforts to strike those exemptions failed. Nor does the bill forbid gambling at Indian casinos or in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
So why single out Internet poker games and the like?
Because "illegal offshore gambling" is a "growing problem," Goodlatte says. He notes that Americans will spend $5.9 billion on it this year -- which, he does not note, is 1 percent of what they will spend next year in interest payments on the national debt, and two and a half times what they spent at Sally Beauty Supply for the 12 months ended March 31.
Stop the madness!
Yet as Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum points out, Goodlatte concedes that "under current federal law, it is unclear whether using the Internet to operate a gambling business is illegal." The 1961 Federal Wire Wager Act's prohibition against using phone lines to place bets might not sufficiently cover the Internet, which is composed of more than phone lines -- so the Goodlatte measure extends the Act's reach to make sure that it does. This is rather like saying it is illegal to place a bet by homing pigeon, because even though the Wire Act doesn't mention pigeons, it should, and therefore Congress will add a line about pigeons just to make sure.
SO WHAT makes online gambling a "problem"?
Goodlatte says it is "unique" because it can be done 24 hours a day, and by children, and the use of a credit card "can undercut a player's perception of the value of cash." The first and third points are not unique to the Internet (guess why casinos lack windows and use chips). The second point probably isn't -- but even if it is, tightening age restrictions should not require shutting down a form of entertainment enjoyed by 23 million Americans. That's on the order of teaching a dog to lie down by shooting it.
As this newspaper pointed out in a 1997 editorial on the Communications Decency Act, "In the name of protecting children from one among many sources of naughtiness, the CDA would trample the free-speech rights of millions of adults." The analogous point applies to gambling: Congress cannot kid-proof the planet. It can seek to discourage underage drinking, too -- but not by banning alcohol.
Do some Internet gambling sites serve as vehicles for "money laundering and other criminal enterprises," as Goodlatte contends? Sure. So do some nightclubs. ("In the indictments, the younger Mr. Gotti and his associates were accused of demanding frequent payments from [Scores, a topless club in New York], extorting one of its former managers, and using the club to launder money" -- The New York Times). Nobody suggests all nightclubs ought to be shut down.
AS IF IN recognition that the case for the bill is weaker than a sick kitten, Goodlatte falls back on the claim that Internet gambling is -- of course -- "a national security concern." He says terrorists could use online gambling as a source of financing. That poker game you played the other night, Gentle Reader, could literally destroy the American way of life. (If the Senate doesn't pass the Goodlatte-Leach bill, then the Terrorists Have Already Won.) And if that is not a good enough reason, then -- of course -- Do It for The Children: "Young people," Goodlatte wrote in a dear-colleague letter, "are particularly at risk." If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then children are the last recourse of a scold.
Gambling, says Goodlatte, leads to "a whole host of ills in society." But then why not also ban casinos and horse tracks and state lotteries? Why not ban booze, which leads to a whole host of ills as well, and television, which does the same, and smoking, which kills millions, and here's a good one -- bearing children out of wedlock, which leads to a whole host of ills, particularly for young people.
Gambling is a vice, of course, and society must do all it can to stifle vice -- as long as this does not cut into government profits.
Online Gambling: Oh My Goodness, We Must Protect the Children!
A. BARTON HINKLE
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Jul 13, 2006
There are several reasons the House passed Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte's bill to crack down on Internet gambling. Unfortunately, there are no good ones.
Congressmen might support the Good- latte-Leach Internet Gam- bling Prohibition Act (co- sponsored by Iowa's Jim Leach, as well as by Virginia's Rick Boucher) out of a moralistic belief that gambling is wrong -- except that the bill makes exemptions for state-run numbers rackets (lotteries) and for gambling on horse races. Efforts to strike those exemptions failed. Nor does the bill forbid gambling at Indian casinos or in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
So why single out Internet poker games and the like?
Because "illegal offshore gambling" is a "growing problem," Goodlatte says. He notes that Americans will spend $5.9 billion on it this year -- which, he does not note, is 1 percent of what they will spend next year in interest payments on the national debt, and two and a half times what they spent at Sally Beauty Supply for the 12 months ended March 31.
Stop the madness!
Yet as Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum points out, Goodlatte concedes that "under current federal law, it is unclear whether using the Internet to operate a gambling business is illegal." The 1961 Federal Wire Wager Act's prohibition against using phone lines to place bets might not sufficiently cover the Internet, which is composed of more than phone lines -- so the Goodlatte measure extends the Act's reach to make sure that it does. This is rather like saying it is illegal to place a bet by homing pigeon, because even though the Wire Act doesn't mention pigeons, it should, and therefore Congress will add a line about pigeons just to make sure.
SO WHAT makes online gambling a "problem"?
Goodlatte says it is "unique" because it can be done 24 hours a day, and by children, and the use of a credit card "can undercut a player's perception of the value of cash." The first and third points are not unique to the Internet (guess why casinos lack windows and use chips). The second point probably isn't -- but even if it is, tightening age restrictions should not require shutting down a form of entertainment enjoyed by 23 million Americans. That's on the order of teaching a dog to lie down by shooting it.
As this newspaper pointed out in a 1997 editorial on the Communications Decency Act, "In the name of protecting children from one among many sources of naughtiness, the CDA would trample the free-speech rights of millions of adults." The analogous point applies to gambling: Congress cannot kid-proof the planet. It can seek to discourage underage drinking, too -- but not by banning alcohol.
Do some Internet gambling sites serve as vehicles for "money laundering and other criminal enterprises," as Goodlatte contends? Sure. So do some nightclubs. ("In the indictments, the younger Mr. Gotti and his associates were accused of demanding frequent payments from [Scores, a topless club in New York], extorting one of its former managers, and using the club to launder money" -- The New York Times). Nobody suggests all nightclubs ought to be shut down.
AS IF IN recognition that the case for the bill is weaker than a sick kitten, Goodlatte falls back on the claim that Internet gambling is -- of course -- "a national security concern." He says terrorists could use online gambling as a source of financing. That poker game you played the other night, Gentle Reader, could literally destroy the American way of life. (If the Senate doesn't pass the Goodlatte-Leach bill, then the Terrorists Have Already Won.) And if that is not a good enough reason, then -- of course -- Do It for The Children: "Young people," Goodlatte wrote in a dear-colleague letter, "are particularly at risk." If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then children are the last recourse of a scold.
Gambling, says Goodlatte, leads to "a whole host of ills in society." But then why not also ban casinos and horse tracks and state lotteries? Why not ban booze, which leads to a whole host of ills as well, and television, which does the same, and smoking, which kills millions, and here's a good one -- bearing children out of wedlock, which leads to a whole host of ills, particularly for young people.
Gambling is a vice, of course, and society must do all it can to stifle vice -- as long as this does not cut into government profits.
posted by Steven at 2:26 PM
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