Net gambling doesn't offer just a more wholesome environment than its land-based competitors. It offers its weak-willed customers more help. How many casinos and lottery machines host "Gamblers Anonymous" banners? Many Web sites provide the functional equivalent: a link to Gamblers Anonymous. The Interactive Gaming Council, the industry's self-governing body, has promulgated a code of conduct that goes even further. Its more than 50 members must "implement adequate procedures to identify and curtail compulsive gambling"--something their software-based systems make relatively easy to do. Real-world gambling services, in contrast, would find it hard to detect and prevent excessive gambling even if they wanted to.
What about "the children"? Here, too, Web sites have an advantage over their offline counterparts. The former can automatically check the identity and age of every player who walks through the virtual door. The latter rely, at best, on hunches about high heels and facial hair. State lotteries, which sell tickets through machines, do even less to guard against underage gambling. Prohibitionists thus err in claiming that Internet gambling presents a new and dire risk to the young. At most, it will marginally increase the chances that some kids will gamble--kids with unsupervised and unfiltered Internet connections, who have not been raised to steer clear of adult-only activities, and who have ready access to credit cards.
Against this, weigh the many benefits Internet gambling offers. For one, it will drive development of the Net's infrastructure. Just as real-world casinos invest heavily in cutting-edge architecture, online gaming services will strive to offer the zippiest graphics and most sophisticated user interfaces. That competition will, as a side benefit, generate broader bandwidth and better software for all sorts of Internet applications, from e-mail to movies on demand.
It will also bring benefits to the gamblers themselves, who deserve the same advantages enjoyed by consumers of other entertainment services--including the fruits of a competitive marketplace. By giving customers cheap and easy access to a variety of gaming opportunities, the Internet can bring competition to an industry that has too long enjoyed the shelter of highly restrictive licensing practices. Freeing up the gambling market will help make payoffs more generous--and more honest.
Internet gaming services have an acute regard for trustworthiness. They lack the usual signs of respectability, such as big buildings and established reputations, and they cannot count on legal monopolies to rope in customers. Graeme Levin, founder of the popular gambling.com index of Internet gambling sites, explained the situation to James Rutherford, one of the many researchers who have studied the Net gaming phenomenon. "This is as close as I believe mankind has come to a free market," Levin said, "and sanctions follow where dishonest behavior is detected and publicized." Sue Schneider, chair of the Internet Gaming Council, agreed: "If you don't like the way you're treated at The Mirage, what can you do? Shout about it in the street? But with the Net, it wouldn't take long for the news groups to be abuzz."
Gamblers also deserve the same legal protections that other consumers enjoy. Prohibition will not cut off access to Internet gaming. It will, however, cut off access to courts. From time to time, Internet gamblers--like other consumers--will suffer fraud, breach of contract, and other legal wrongs. Prohibition merely assures that Internet gamblers will have no recourse to legal remedies.
Finally, the right to peaceably dispose of one's property surely includes the right to trade, throw, or gamble it away. The Founding Fathers understood this. As Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence by day, he relaxed in the evening by betting on backgammon, cards, and bingo. Benjamin Franklin--using his era's most advanced technology--printed a good portion of the colonies' playing cards. George Washington regularly bet on horses, gambled in card games, and bought lottery tickets. He also managed public lotteries, as did Franklin and John Hancock. Apparently, some notable Founders regarded gambling as part of their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.
Over a century ago (in Internet years), .com originated as shorthand for commercial. To its business users, the suffix retains that meaning. To the many clubs, hobbyists, and individuals who have adopted it, it has come to mean communication. To politicians and the gambling businesses they run and license, it stands for competition.
Internet competition has hit old-fashioned offline businesses first and hardest--especially those, like gambling, that have long profited under the shelter of highly restrictive licenses. But as the political storm over gambling demonstrates, Internet competition poses an even greater threat to government monopolies.
At home, in private, with the click of a mouse, citizens and consumers can now escape the grip of merely local legislation. They will shrug off domestic prohibition on Internet gambling and take their business to overseas sites with more respect for their rights. Sooner or later, incumbent gaming services and their political patrons will wake up to these gales of change. They will see their futile efforts to ban online gaming collapse--like a house of cards.
Tom W. Bell (www.tomwbell.com) is an assistant professor at Chapman University Law School and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
C'mon Lucky Seven
What it's like to gamble online.
My quest for cybergambling action began around 6 p.m. and started at Yahoo!, where I used the site's "Recreation" heading to find almost 300 online casinos. Faced with such overwhelming choice (and $100 of REASON-supplied cash burning a hole in my pocket), I scrolled through the list of links and settled on the Kenny Rogers Casino. Yes, that Kenny Rogers--the country-singer-cum-chicken-magnate who has also portrayed a character called "The Gambler" in a series of rotten TV movies.
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