Since I have been endorsing online gambling - sort of - I thought I would point you to this article regarding the legality of those sites.
It strikes me as yet another example of the Nanny State mentality of the government claiming to want to protect us from ourselves. That is not the job of our elected officials, they should just worry about protecting us from other people. If you read my previous posts you will see that I am not actually a gambler, only playing with fake money. Why? Because I can't afford (or don't want to) lose real money. That is my choice. If you want to play with real money, that is your choice. I know there are people who go overboard and drain their bank accounts but I didn't vote for anyone in the office of "keep people from spending their own money". Not.your.job. There do seem to be several committees of "keep people from having money to spend" - but that's a different (annoying) deal
I believe what it really comes down to is the Feds don't have enough access to the revenue. They have no problem with lotteries. They have no problem with brick and mortar casinos - heck, I can point my car in just about any direction and be at a casino in 20 or 30 minutes. But they get revenue from those. The casinos in Arizona contribute around a billion dollars each year just in direct tax money. Those greedy politicians love that and promptly spend it on some stupid program or other that should not be financed via public funds - but I digress. Add to that any additional monies from tourism/travel, food/beverage, gasoline...... Not to mention the enormous cash infusion to the Indian community. That's commerce, Baby. Free enterprise. Viva Capitalism!
What is the difference with online gambling? No way for the government to get their fingers convincingly into the pie. I imagine they will figure it out soon enough - there is just too much money changing hands for them not to skim off a portion for themselves.
Posted by Vox at May 15, 2005 02:00 PM | poker , politics