Hedging Online Bets

Britain-based online gambling site 888 is disallowing U.S. customers from wagering due to pending legislation to definitively ban Internet gambling in the U.S. Full story here.

This follows from the arrests of two CEOs of fully legal (outside the U.S.) Internet gambling companies as they passed through the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave while traveling.

Back in July, when the feds first picked up BetOnSports' chief David Carruthers, Jacob Sullum took a long look at the nuanced madness of that action.

Arguably the most idiotic element of the new legislation, which would clarify what has been a gray area for a very long period of time, is that everyone involved knows that it's only a matter of time before online gambling is made fully legal in the U.S. As Greg Beato wrote in our May issue, legalized gambling has already moved from the Vegas Strip to Main Street. The question isn't if online gambling will be allowed, only when.

Comments

[sage +P]

"The question isn't if online gambling will be allowed, only when."

When it's figured out how to give Uncle Sam a piece of the action, of course.

Prepare, folks. The revolution cometh.

[D.A. Ridgely]

The question isn't if online gambling will be allowed, only when.

Are you giving odds?

[Ruthless]

If there were on-line bingo, maybe the Pope could put in a good word?

[Lamar]

What do you suggest, we just cut and run?

[P Brooks]

A cynical observer might speculate about lobbying efforts and political contributions made by domestic (American) gaming operations.

[Pro Libertate]

Continuing my NSF-funded series of postings to Mr. Cavanaugh on why space colonization does make sense, let me add to the Space Sex Trade Argument? the Off-Planet Gambling and Banking Argument?.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I for one am glad they are trying to ban internet gambling. We don't need it spoiling an otherwise wholesome environment.

[Ruthless]

Mr. Nice Guy,
Now that you mention it, isn't internet gambling kind of like having a cigarette... after having cyber sex?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Ruthless:

The way I look at it, if I lose my shirt from internet gambling, in a couple clicks I can look at young women losing THEIR shirts.

The universe is in balance.

[Della]

Here's a quite from the UK conservative party on the issue:

Lord Glentoran, shadow sports minister and Conservative party spokesman on Northern Ireland:
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1884482,00.html

"The Americans have been advertising for the last 150 years that they are the land of the free, they are actually the land of the shackles, there is no freedom in the US."

[hobbes]

I think it's great that I can pay to watch a co-ed give oral pleasure to a farm animal but in the near future I won't be able to go online and place a $10 bet on that co-ed's football team.

This is a losing issue for Republicans pols, I know a bunch of young folks who have placed bets or played poker online who are going to be really pissed when they find out they can't do it thanks to Frist. Most of them would call themselves Republicans, but this little moralistic overreach may cause a few of them to check out other options.

[happyjuggler0]

memo to the government:

Mind your own fucking business. If I want to play poker online you have no right to even try to stop me.

I was already planning on voting for divided government, but this issue makes it crystal clear. One party government is pure evil.

[Pro Libertate]

happyjuggler0,

That's right. Vote against the evil Libertarians. Splitters!

Wait a second. . . .

[JK]

The BBC TV news are going with the protectionism angle, noting that Lotto, horse racing and Vegas have escaped the ban, which has just so happened to hit an industry based overseas (primarily the UK, hence the BBC interest).

[Pro Libertate]

Thank God that the government won't lose access to that evil scourge, gambling.

Wait a second. . . .

[Pro Libertate]

Though I guess government-sponsored gambling is okay because it's for the children.

[KipEsquire]

"The question isn't if online gambling will be allowed, only when."

Yes, and gay marriage will someday exist everywhere in the U.S.

But "someday" does us very little good in the meantime.

[Lamar]

Was gambling made illegal because it is, according to Bill Bennett, immoral, or because it brings gangsters and criminals to the area?