Legal Online Gambling May Return to US

According to a story on News.com, legal online gambling may return to the US. The ban, put into place last year, is now in jeopardy thanks to the efforts of folks like Barney Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services committee. Frank is of the opinion that adults should police themselves for excessive gambling, and the government should stay out of their way. "Friday's hearing included witnesses from companies that process online payments. In general, they echoed the arguments once used in favor of ending alcohol prohibition and that are now being invoked to decriminalize marijuana: It's better to legalize, tax and carefully regulate an industry than let it flourish with far less oversight in the black market. Some countries already do just that. In the United Kingdom, for instance, Internet gambling is legal and strictly regulated. Some of the larger online casino operators are publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. "

hmm

While Frank is a policy wonk, and usually tries to find reasonable solutions to real problems unlike many of his colleagues, I can't help but wonder who is paying for this.

Re:hmm

While Frank is a policy wonk, and usually tries to find reasonable solutions to real problems unlike many of his colleagues, I can't help but wonder who is paying for this.

I agree that he isn't likely to be "taking one for the team" because he thinks it's the right thing to do.

But, there's a larger issue here: The US has repeatedly lost to Antigua [iht.com] in the WTO, who has ruled that the US law against online gambling (while exempting other gambling within the US) is illegal under the WTO treaty.

The US has responded by saying "we will renegotiate the treaty". Needless to say, this hasn't gone over well with other members of the WTO.

Antigua has threatened to retaliate, but their options are limited. One proposal is for Antigua to sell US-copywrited material (i.e. music) online, without paying the royalties.

can you say...

The Pirate Bay of the Caribbean ?

    Antigua could be a major hosting site for torrents...

Re:hmm

What he does when he's visiting your trailer is beside the point.

He's right on this issue, and he deserves the support of anyone who's sick of the nanny state telling us what to do.

-jcr

Re:

Before they get around to legalizing online gambling

I'll take whatever rollbacks of government power I can get, in whatever order they arrive, thanks.

-jcr

Re:

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has plans to build a casino [theday.com] in his district (Masschusetts's 4th [wikipedia.org]).

The article mentions three towns, two of which just so happen to be in Frank's district.

I wonder what odds the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe will give for their casino plans and Frank's push for legalizing online casinos being completely unrelated?

Whilst I'm not American, it seems to me that if he's doing this to benefit his constituency, then he's just doing his job properly. After all we elect our representatives to do just that, represent us.

Reversal?

It's kind of interesting to see the Bush Administration in favor of restricting commerce, while Barney Frank (a Democrat) wants to allow a freer (albeit still heavily regulated) market.

Re:Reversal?

The Democrats have been getting steadily more libertarian as the Republicans get steadily more authoritarian. I'm hoping that at some point the libertarians who still call themselves Republicans will see which way the wind is blowing and either (a) desert en masse to the Democratic Party, thus speeding up the change, (b) desert en masse to the Libertarian Party, thus turning the Republican Party into a shadow, or (c) take control of the Republican Party from the raving nutcases who are currently running it. But I've been waiting a long time.

I'm a Democrat. Sorry. We're not Libertarians

People who claim that Democrats are, or are becoming libertarian are wrong. This is a base political ploy to gain the support of Libertarians. I happen to think there are good reasons for Libertarians to hold their noses and stand with us Democrats in the next couple of years, but I also believe that, in the words of our party's founder, "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind" behooves us to be honest when we solicit that support.

Democrats are not libertarian in the sense that Libertarians use the word. Democrats don't subscribe to the "negative" theories of liberty in which liberty is precisely an absence of government constraint. We have a more utilitarian view of liberty in which opportunity plays an equal role. This means we support interfering with the freedom of the powerful when it constrains the opportunity of the less powerful. Most of us recognize that opportunities will never be equal in society, and in fact for most of us equality of outcome is not a goal; but where the physical well being of the median person can be improved; where that person has the ability to better himself through education or culture; where greater scope of action can be offered through greater opportunity -- there we have no problem taxing people or acting to balance the liberties of the powerful against the liberties of the average person.

For example, our philosophy doesn't have a problem limiting the number of broadcast outlets an individual can own in a market. If somebody has a soapbox, we are happy to see him use it. But also see no problem in denying him the right to buy all the soapboxes in town if that would pose a problem for the average person in getting his voice heard. It's purely a matter of utility for us.

This is a divide in philosophy between us and Libertarians that cannot be bridged.

At first glance, it's hard to see any consistent philosophy in the modern Republican leadership. It alternately talks a libertarian game, then paternalistic, then authoritarian. They also are anti-elitist when it comes to every virtue that does not touch on power or wealth: they are particularly hostile intellectual or education distinction. This alone makes them a pratical enemy of the principled Libertarians.

The most consistent explanation of Republican policy seems to be that they, like the Democrats, subscribe to a utilitarian combination of negative and positive liberties. The difference is that the liberties they favor are for the deserving. The deserving are by definition those that can obtain, hold and wield power, or who are useful to those wielding power. Aside from the lack of economic or political egalitarianism, the Republican political philosophy operates much like the Democratic political philosophy. This explains why it is so easy for a Democrat like Lieberman to become a crypto-Republican. The imperative of holding on to power is a corrupting influence.

So, overall, I'd say principled libertarians have little reason to trust Democrats, but very good reason to distrust Republicans. Democratic ideology is incompatible with libertarianism, but it is restrained (in principle) by political egalitarianism. There is one positive reason for libertarians to support the Democrats in the short term: the increasing fusion of private economic and state power. This is a fundamental principle of fascism, and if allowed to continue on this route much longer our country will become a de facto fascist state. Democrats are not immune to this, as I pointed out. Nobody is. But at least we Democrats in principle oppose this fusion. The blogosphere, for all its faults, may give the Democratic party activists some ability to pull our wavering politicans from the brink.

In my opinion libertarians will have little opportunity to sway the course of events from within their own party, not until they can capture at least one Senate seat. If they could capture one in 2008, and if the Senate remains about as divided as it is, the Libertarians would become very powerful i

About that, Mr. Frank...

From TFA:
""In the end, adults ought to be able to decide for themselves how they spend the money they earn themselves," said Rep. Barney Frank"

Yeah, about that. You see Mr. Frank, you arrange the taking of a very large percentage of the money I work hard to earn every year, and you decide how it should be spent for me. So if you could go ahead and look into that while you're at it, that'd be great, mmmkay?

So it takes online gambling to get Barney to come around? Looks like someone must've spent a lot of time playing online poker.

He's lying! You can tell, his lips are moving.

So it takes a large wad of cash donated by companies involved in online gambling to get Barney to come around? Looks like someone must've spent a lot of time playing online poker.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:He's lying! You can tell, his lips are moving.

sometimes with lawmakers and corruption larges wads of jizz are involved too

Re:

The thing is, he knows he can tax it when it's legal again.

Re:

Well, ya, that's the point. Online gambling hasn't stopped because of the ban, it just goes on in the shadows . Hopefully they'll do something about cannabis as well. Taxing it like beer & gambling seems like a better option than wasting money on

Re:About that, Mr. Frank...

Heh, oddly enough, Rep. Frank was the same one who, a while back, criticized [house.gov] supposedly free-market conservatives for voting for farm subsidies:

This spectacle allowed even liberal Barney Frank (D., Mass.) to hold forth as a fiscal conservative. "I have listened to many of my conservative friends talk about the wonders of the free market, of the importance of letting the consumers make their best choices, of keeping government out of economic activity, of the virtues of free trade, but then I look at various agricultural programs like this one," Mr. Frank said. "It violates every principle of free market economics known to man and two or three not yet discovered."

        He then delivered this zinger: "I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture."

Re:

Yeah, I can think of no reason a nation might want to maintain a native food producing capability.

wow

I am stupefied. Barney Frank has finally done something I agree with. The skiing must be pretty good in hell nowadays...

Re:

Not only that, but Congress may be about to pass a bill that leave us better off than we were before.

Could it be?

Well, this is terrible!

The American people are nowhere near mature enough to be trusted with foolish ways to lose money! I, for one, demand that this motion be defeated by moralizing [senate.gov] elites [house.gov] with the power to regulate our vices! Such measures always work [wikipedia.org] as planned!

Re:

Surely you're not trying to suggest that the congress is an elite group?

-jcr

With all due respect ...

... what's the problem? Our government tried to outlaw a "sin" in the 20's with a Constitutional amendment, and had to repeal it because it was unpopular and unenforceable. I never thought outlawing it was a good idea anyway. I could care less about online gambling personally, but I am a recovering alcoholic and could certainly see how life would be a little easier if there was no booze anywhere around me. But that will never happen, just like a complete eradication of online gambling will never happen. It's just not practical, and I honestly question whether it's ethical anyway. Besides, it's up to me to stay quit -- not the government.

I happen to like Barney Frank a lot -- he's often the no-BS guy in a flock of honking geese in suits worth more than my car. And sometimes he's an arrogant jerk. But I rarely feel like I'm getting the D.C. sugar-coating treatment from him. So perhaps I'm biased. But still, I just don't see that this is a bad thing.

In a free society, people are responsible for themselves (and their children). If they can build a boat here in Illinois (we can't have land-based casinos, but we can have permanently docked unseaworthy boats -- go figure) where people can freely walk in and piss away their money, why should this be outlawed on the Web? It's a silly, unenforceable, and reactionary law that deserves to be repealed. The Reverend Lovejoys of the world had their year or two of cleanliness on this one, and it's time to go back to rational laws about things that the government should be focused on.

Re:

The Reverend Lovejoys of the world had their year or two of cleanliness on this one, and it's time to start finally making, for once, rational laws about things that the government should be focused on.

Fixed. No charge.

Re:With all due respect ... its more to do with...

Its more to do with this ban being an illegal act under the WTO rules, with two judgements against the US and the threat of sanctions and fines. As has been reported before, US companies could lose international IP protection via Antigua if something isn't

Re:

Question: Is it not then, the governmetn's responsibility to (can't totally prevent) minimize that? If "Yes" and you still have you opinion, then what SHOULD be done?

Given your premises, perhaps one might actually target gambling addicts, rather than driv

Re:With all due respect ...

Preface: It IS the governments responsibility to protect it's citizens.

Not from themselves. You should look into who is REALLY being protected with prohibition laws.

Taking things out of the black market

In general, they echoed the arguments once used in favor of ending alcohol prohibition and that are now being invoked to decriminalize marijuana: It's better to legalize, tax and carefully regulate an industry than let it flourish with far less oversight in the black market.

YES! I personally am not a drug addict or anything, but if you were able to buy crack, heroin, and marijuana in your local CVS, the world would be a much better place. If you could obtain these substances legally, they would be under a lot more control. Less accidentally unboiled rat poison. Additionally, gangs and mafias would be out of business.

The side effect would be the companies selling the drugs, just like the cigarette companies today, but it is the lesser of two evils when compared to the mafia or a street gang.

Re:

Man, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or what, but if I could buy weed at the local CVS, I wouldn't have to sell my body for crack anymore. The world would indeed be a much better place.

Re:Taking things out of the black market

You mean allowing a HUGE chunk of the population be addicted as opposed to a small manageable chunk?

That's all well and good except for one thing: You cannot show that a "huge chunk" of the population would become addicted to drugs.

And it doesn't matter if the dealer is selling their crack for $5 a pop, or $2.50 from the gov't, the addicts need to find the money to buy this crap somewhere.

Right. Everywhere I've lived there are roaming gangs of alcoholics and cigarette junkies breaking into apartments and stores, stealing items, and selling them in the pawn shops to support their habit. Give me a break.

Re:Taking things out of the black market

You mean allowing a HUGE chunk of the population be addicted as opposed to a small manageable chunk?

  Prior to Prohibition, there were a handful of saloons in New York city, and they were male only. Drinking was a social event, and virtually nobody drank alone. After prohibition was passed, there sprang up thousands of speakeasy saloons across New York, and they popularized drinking among women as well. The desire to leave no evidence lead to more solo drinking at home.
  After prohibition ended, rates of drinking did NOT skyrocket, but rather began a long, slow slide. Even better, alcoholism became recognized as an actual illness that deserved treatment. In the prohibition era, suggesting such a thing marked you as a prohibitionist; it was impossible to talk about the subject rationally for as long as the insanity of the prohibitionists was in force.

And it doesn't matter if the dealer is selling their crack for $5 a pop, or $2.50 from the gov't

Try "free." The drug market regularly sees 100% markups, since the majority of drugs have a negligable cost of production. Sure you could charge $1.00 or $0.50 or something for clinical fees, but it makes no difference. Provided at cost, a heroin addict can afford his necessary levels of heroin on a McDonald's salary. (What's more, heroin has very little ill effects when clean and administered properly. People have lived for decades and been productive and valuable members of society while addicted to heroin in the past, but our current law turns them into parasites instead.)

You get rid of the relative few BIG criminals and make tons of small criminals.

Actually trial runs of this sort of thing in Britian showed a twelve-fold reduction in crime rates. So no.
It also showed a drop in current numbers of addicts, a reduction of new addicts, lower rates of prostitution and consequently lower transmission rates of stds and aids.
  But I'm sure your idea would work really well.

You *NEVER* get rid of the blackmarket by legalizing something.

Tell that to all the prohibition-era gangsters who went legit after the law was repealed. The mafia dropped in size to less than half its previous numbers. The only thing that saved them was the illegalization of narcotics.

he cure for criminal behavior is making certain folks with these traits can never reproduce again (thats as far as I'll advocate, you can take what ever opinion you wish beyond that).

  You really have NO FUCKING CLUE how many people you're talking about, do you? Here's a hint: We haven't got enough police to even hold that many people, much less line them up and push them into incinerators.
  Asshole.

Re:Taking things out of the black market

The fact is, legalization does NOT increase drug use. It merely legitimizes it. (I've read scientific studies on this from the past, when Reagen intrigued me with his "War on Drugs" bullshit). I can guarantee you that people who do not want to do drugs today, will not want to do drugs tomorrow just because they are legal.

Legalization will just get rid of the criminals (thugs, murderers, etc), and stop criminalizing the victims (those prone to addiction, etc).

Why we would want to spend thousands of dollars a year per person (for sometimes many, many years) putting people in jail because they have a psychological problem defies any sense of logic (to me).

Re:

You know, I wrote out a whole long essay type response, but at the end I realized I can summarize it pretty effectively so I decided to do that instead. All this pro-drug crap (no offense) seems to ignore a huge glaring issue, and that issue is that most

From the same party...

That's all about banning video games. Woohoo!

The government is all for gambling...

That's why they want to enforce their local monopoly, um, I mean encourage people to play the lottery. If they had banned the lottery, vegas, etc when they banned online gamboling, it would have at least been consistent. As it is, there's no doubt that the government is just looking for more money. So they'll be happy to allow internet gamboling if they can regulate and tax the bejesus out of it, like every other legalized "sin".

I would've loved Barney Frank...

If his opinion on adults' ability to police themselves extended into non-entertainment areas of life...

If he grew the understanding, that we are likewise capable of saving for retirement, finding job, choosing health-care options, etcetera, I would even have forgiven his copious amounts of non-help in the case of my grandmother's immigration to the US.

Re:

If he grew the understanding, that I, unlike millions of Americans, [census.gov] presently have the option of saving for retirement, finding job, choosing health-care options, etcetera

There, fixed. No charge. Sorry for the PDF.

Re:

I, unlike millions of Americans, presently have the option

Are you — along with Mr. Frank — telling me, that "millions" of natively born and raised Americans have somebody but themselves (and, maybe, their own parents) to blame for not being a

We need some like the nevada gaming commission

too keep on line gaming fair and to enforce law against people who may try to cheat it and that may come from both sides.

I'm all for legal gambling, alcohol, and drugs

It's the heavy taxation and strict regulation I am opposed to. These are all things that should be controlled entirely by private citizens. Good old capitalism can handle these problems and there is no more justification for government regulation than any other industry.

Here is a wild thought, instead of trying to micro-manage every industry where businesses could endanger the health of individuals with poor standards or swindle individuals we start making the executives and investors in ALL businesses criminally liable for the actions. If food or drug processor took an action that harmed or endangered people then the ones who made the call should go to pound me in the arse prison. The same is true of casinos that use rigged machines that constitute fraud. Right now a company can use a dangerous chemical that will hurt people to cut corners and make hundreds of millions doing so. IF they get caught, the worst they face will be a few million in fines and lawsuits and probably will make a net profit on the affair. Even if they break even they will profit from the practice overall since any punk kid can tell you that the cops don't even know most crimes happen let alone catch the bad guys. If you make white collar decision makers subject to the same sort of consequences as the hungry crack addict on the street you can bet the decisions they make will reflect that.

Aside from enforcing criminal law, the only time the government needs to interfere with industry is fix the fundamental flaw in the free market. The flaw is of course companies that are too large to allow real competition. Of course single company monopolies aren't the only problem that needs to be solved, it is common practice now for several supposed competitors to collude in a manner that has the same effect as a monopoly. In both of these situations it is necessary for the government to step in and the right to property has to be considered secondary to the interests of the nation as a whole.

Good!

It's very nice and refreshing to wake up on a saterday morning, read Slashdot, and find out American politicians with a sane view on reality actually still exist. Completely independent of the fact if you like and/or approve of online gambling, softdrugs, alcohol, etc. this is the only way to reduce their harmful effects to a minimum, regulate them, and still respect the choices made by individuals.

I don't know much about Ben Frank's other political views, but he definitely seems more pragmatic (as opposed to dogmatic) than most high-profile US politicians I know of. I think that's a good thing. Where I come from (the Netherlands), the attitude against for example softdrugs, smart drugs, alcohol and other possibly harmful things people can do to themselves is comparable, and from 27 years of experience I can tell this has lead to lower softdrugs usage than in the countries surrounding us, less health issues, less drugs-related crimes etc.

Funny thing is, the Dutch government still has a really stupid and dualistic stance on (online) gambling. Online gambling is specifically prohibited here, as is organising (for example) small-scale poker tournaments etc. The *only* institution that is allowed to offer legal gambling opportunities is 'Holland Casino', which is a government-controlled (but still commercially exploited) casino that has a monopoly on all things related to gambling. This includes, for example, all variants of poker, even though the most popular variants don't even qualify as gambling. Now, over the last few years, playing poker has become a real hype here. Lots of people play it now, and they want to play tournaments against different opponents. What's happening right now, is that small-scale 'illegal' poker tournaments (with buy-ins in the $10-$50 range, or $0.5-$2 cash games) get busted every now and then, and the people entering and organising them are criminalised. This has lead to more people finding their ways to 'Holland Casino' for playing poker, which only offers tournaments starting at $100 buy-ins, or $5-$10 cash games. Just yesterday a study was published that showed a lot of dutch students have gambling debts from playing poker on limits that are way too high for their skills...

Re:Barney Frank.

The rep who ran a gay brothel out of his home?

Why not? His day job involves the world's most profitable brothel - seems like a smart bit of career choice.

Now, why exactly is this relevant to, you know, online gambling, which generally involves a minimum of hot man-on-man action?

Re:

WEARING MIXED FABRICS IS A SIN [biblegateway.com] - Please Institute a Ban!

Remember jesus went unto the tomb and then rose after three days to eat THE BRAINS OF THE LIVING ARRRRGH

Re:

If you even learned about the Bible, you would know that the Levitical Law was for the Jews, not for us Christians.

I have, you presumptuous, anonymous ass. Now, please direct me to the passage in the New Testament that declares gambling a sin.

Re:

Oh, and by the way, don't try pointing out statements by Paul [biblegateway.com] that have to be teased through the interpretive comb to get results. I mean, really, who's missing the point badly enough to presume that anyone other than God in the person of Jesus can declar

Re:

the Levitical Law was for the Jews, not for us Christians. ..and that is only one of the clear proofs that jesus was not the messiah.

-jcr

Re:READ YOUR BIBLE!

"GAMBLING IS A SIN" would only equal "NEEDS A MAN MADE LAW" in a Theocracy. I think a good portion of following the teachings of the Bible is that it should be something done out of free will, not a requirement of the state.

Re:READ YOUR BIBLE!

The biblical prohibition against gambling is derived from several places, even though it is not mentioned explicitly. Coveting, which the bible does explicitly mention, is condemned, and gambling to get rich, or any so-called get-rich-quick schemes for that matter would definitely fit that bill The bible also says that a person is supposed to work for what he gets (condemning laziness and expectations that the world owes one something). Finally, it advises to not put stock in worldly wealth, pointing out that people that love money have seriously misplaced their priorities in life and are unlikely to ever be satisfied unless they change their values.

Re:

Now THAT's a bad bet. The odds of getting a well-reasoned mod are something like 9:4, while the payout is only...erm...

Re:

Karma. Only karma.

Re:

Thanks for your research on this subject.
For tonights' homework, however, I want you to write a paper on paragraphs.

Republicans used to stand for less government.

Clinton was the most fiscally conservative president in the past 50 years. Yes, that's including Reagan, who gets second place. And that's *only* counting non-military spending, so we're not counting Reagan's defense build-up against him.

Bush isn't even in