New at Reason

David Weigel | July 12, 2006

Jacob Sullum watches Congress crap out on online gambling regulation.

Comments

|7.12.06 @ 2:11AM|#

There's a spurious "mailto:" at the start of the article link.

As to the article: what twits. I don't know that anything more needs to be said about the "small government" brigade in office.

Tim Cavanaugh|7.12.06 @ 2:19AM|#

Thanks, Eric. Fixt.

|7.12.06 @ 3:08AM|#

If there's one thing I hate, it's a spurious mulatto.

|7.12.06 @ 3:16AM|#

Gee, he's right. People who can't control their gambling are no worse than people who drink too much, or overeat, or....Hey, wait a minute. They're going after me too. Aieeeeee!

|7.12.06 @ 3:21AM|#

As always, fixed fast...and in the middle of the night, yet.

|7.12.06 @ 7:11AM|#

and now the credit card companies are deputized to help fight the war on online gambling.

|7.12.06 @ 8:07AM|#

I'll give anyone 10 to 1 odds it won't pass in the Senate. If it does, I just screwed myself.

|7.12.06 @ 8:41AM|#

Time to buy into some kind of international internet money laundering venture....


as for screwing yourself with spurious mulattos, I'll leave that alone.

|7.12.06 @ 9:20AM|#

Video poker used to be illegal in this state. It was here of course but illegal. The cops and politicians all knew where it was located because many of them played it regularly. I know this because my best friends dad setup games out of his amusement business for 20 years, while it was illegal.

Along comes the idea of legalizing video poker and putting it in bars and restaurants. Since the politicians knew where all the illegal operations were already they went around and rounded everyone up with arrests. The politicians knowing they were about to legalize the games wanted everyone already setup and running poker to have a record for illegal gambling. Now all these people would be unable to get a license to setup the games legally.

Smacky the politicians then buy into the companies that will be providing the NEW LEGAL video poker. Ah politicians what a truly ethical group of people. They did at least offer my friends dad a sweetheart deal with regards to fines and jail, $5000 fine and 6 months probation. They just wanted him out of action. However, being a crusty old cajun he didn't think they had anything on him, after all they never arrested him before and he knew they knew for all these years. He turns down the plea deal and ends up going to jail for 3 years and got his fine raised to $50,000.

Now we have entire buildings with nothing but video poker and off track betting. (tax profits supposed to go for the schools, NOT). Some parishs voted it out locally since but the ones that have it are similar to counties without liquor in that right across the every parish line there are 4 video poker places.

Seems politicians want to cherry pick the gambling we are allowed to do with the money they allow us to keep from our pay checks. This smaller government is just wonderful!

To me its gambling to give 12.6% of my income to Social Security seeing how I will likely never get it unless I live to be 70 and no one gets it if I don't. What pissed me off to no end is that it is perfectly ok for them to waste our money on whatever they want but we are told what we must do with whats left over. Nanny state syndrome is sunk deep in DC. To bad our nannies are a bunch of idiots with nothing but their own self interests leading them.

How many people would leave their kid with Ted Kennedy to take care of as their Manny? Or any other politician for that matter.

Term limits please....

|7.12.06 @ 9:24AM|#

Evidently those values do not include privacy, freedom of choice, individual responsibility, or free markets.

The biggest "duh" statement of the day...please tell me you added this preaching to the choir only because this is published somewhere else.

Warren|7.12.06 @ 10:06AM|#

Thank you Ayn Randian. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's grown weary of the small gov Republican myth. Even debunking it gives it too much credit.

|7.12.06 @ 10:43AM|#

"Evidently those values do not include privacy, freedom of choice, individual responsibility, or free markets."

please tell me you added this preaching to the choir only because this is published somewhere else.


It is published somewhere else, presumably for the benefit a mostly non-libertarian crowd (98% of the populace). Sullum's mild sarcasm is perfectly acceptable in this context, wouldn't you say?

|7.12.06 @ 10:55AM|#

The issue of gambling is a complex one where I live (gulf coast, Alabama). We do not have a lottery, but do have dog tracks.

The Creek Indians have bingo, but the Cherokee wont have anything to do with gambling. The Chocktaw will, and the Chickasaw wont.

A few years ago we had a massive vote on whether to allow a state lottery. Religious groups put up signs everywhere--the odd thing was that these signs were paid for by Mississippi casinos who did not want competition.

I voted at a church..which is not unusual because the Baptist have alot of space. (Although, where I live most people are Catholic)

But because it was a private building they could get around the voting law of not having propaganda. So...as you are waiting to vote, you were bombarded with anti lottery things all the way down the hall on Sunday School Boards.

I have no problem with internet gambling. And, of course, the Indians have every right to either have it or not.

I do object to the state running ads encouraging people to gamble (which Florida does on a regular basis).

Also, with gambling (as a state revenue) the state is encouraged to not balance the books. They always rely on the gambling habits of people and are therefore allowed to run the economics of the State into the ground.

***
I think what we are seeing with the online gambling is that officials are not against gambling per se...they just want a cut of the money--which they cant get over the internet.

|7.12.06 @ 10:58AM|#

I'll give anyone 10 to 1 odds it won't pass in the Senate.

I'll take a piece of that!

|7.12.06 @ 11:03AM|#

Jacob Sullum consistently produces some of the strongest arguments written in Reason. (Maybe it's born of necessity-he does tackle drug policy.)

But this time he's really, really out-done himself. This is a stick-to-your-refrigerator-door good piece.

|7.12.06 @ 11:33AM|#

I don't enjoy gambling. I've never engaged in online gambling, and have zero interest in doing so.

But I just have to ask:

What the everliving fuck is wrong with these assholes?

|7.12.06 @ 12:15PM|#

I was just thinking the other day about how fun it would be to sit around at home, playing online poker, for a living or even just for leisure. Maybe I better stop thinking about fun things before they ban some other ideas I had that I thought might be fun.

|7.12.06 @ 12:17PM|#

What the everliving fuck is wrong with these assholes?

Some of their constituents, for various reasons, think that gambling is evil and should be outlawed. The lobbyists from brick and mortar casinos, horsetracks etc. want internet gambling outlawed because their clients aren't making money off it. This is a way to stroke both groups while wrapping it up in protecting, families and "American" values.

|7.12.06 @ 12:27PM|#

Certainly they are only concerned about not getting their cut of the action or that the people that paid them off are not getting as big a cut anymore because people are gambling all over the place, brick and mortar casinos are losing out which makes pols lose out.

I don't enjoy gambling in a casino for several reasons. First it is so loud from all the slot machines. Between the flashing and sounds all around seems it might make someone have a epileptic seizure. Second all the games in a casino are rigged in favor of the house. Last time I went with $50 played 10 and then put the rest in my pocket and left. I much rather play poker online and so far I am up a few grand doing so.

When you go to a casino you might as well walk straight up to the cashiers window, put your money down and ask if you've won. Only blackjack has the ability to give the player a slim edge over the house if they know what they are doing. Yet if they discover your smart enough to take advantage of that your asked to leave. Apparently casinos are only in business to take money from losers, not to pay off winners. The rest of the games your a dog going in no matter what.

As for government and gambling it drives me crazy to hear the constant ads on radio and TV about some new scratch off lotto ticket. They hype it as some game with a twist like Triple7's, Matchword, Double Diamond etc. In their ads they always say something like 20 chances/ways to win on each ticket. Yet when you turn the ticket over in the fine print the odds of you winning with any one ticket are 1 in 4.31 or there about. To me this is misleading false advertising. The ticket could have 10000 chances/ways of winning but when it gets right down to it only 1 in 4.31 will win no matter what.

They do this to capitalize on the people foolish enough to think they are getting a better chance to win and they know it. If they only had one scratch off ticket all the time and you just scratched to find out Winner or Not Winner. They would lose that hook that they depend on to lure these same people they are trying to keep from gambling on those other evil things online. Talk about misleading the public.

So now we have Indian Casinos, Regular Casinos, Riverboat Casinos, 3 different lottery drawings, 20 different lotto scratch off cards and video poker in Louisiana. Lord forbid I should want to gamble online that might compromise someones morals and family values.

Just follow the money as with anything else it will show you the reason why.

|7.12.06 @ 12:39PM|#

Gambling seems to draw shady people to it. Still, I do love me some gambling. Let me share a story with you: When I was a wee kid of about 12 years old, I went to my church festival as I did every year (like the good Catholic girl I was), and spent my whole weekend (and all of my money) buying instant bingo tickets. I finally hit paydirt on the final day of the festival. I won $100! But when I tried to collect my money, the church ladies, who had no moral problems selling gambling cards to an underage kid all weekend, didn't want to pay me -- on grounds that I wasn't 18 and therefore I shouldn't be allowed to collect. Their hypocrisy stunned me. Finally, I think they gave in and paid me, after I protested sufficiently.

What a bunch of cunts.

|7.12.06 @ 1:03PM|#

Smacky - Thats right up there with the government selling tax stamps for marijuana and profiting off a substance they will not legally/offically let you have to begin with.

What better example of government wanting it both ways. Even they are willing to profit off things they made illegal. We are so far beyond double standards these days we are up to double standards cubed. As if one wasn't enough they add more and more that makes figuring out what is right and wrong pretty much impossible. Look at campaign finance reform they all signed, then found out they were in violation of their own laws, laws that affected no one but themselves. If they put so little thought into those laws that only pertain to them, how much do they put into the ones the encompass all of us and not them?

Only certain laws are set in stone usually drug laws. The rest of the laws and regulations we are buried under are all subject to interpretation. Just hope you get someone that interprets the same way you do or your fucked. The word interpretation is by its very definition open to interpretation. And thus the lawyers go round and round.

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