This is part 3 of a multipart group of articles regarding proposed anti-gambling legislation. In this information, I continue the discussion of the reasons claimed to produce this legislation necessary, and the important points that exist in the real world, such as the Jack Abramoff connection and the addictive nature of online gambling.
The legislators are attempting to protect us from something, or are they? Everything seems only a little confusing to say the least.
As stated in previous articles, the House, and the Senate, are once more considering the matter of “Online Gambling” ;.Bills have already been submitted by Congressmen Goodlatte and Leach, and also by Senator Kyl.안전놀이터
The bill being put forward by Rep. Goodlatte, The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, has got the stated intention of updating the Wire Act to outlaw all types of online gambling, to produce it illegal for a gambling business to just accept credit and electronic transfers, and to force ISPs and Common Carriers to block usage of gambling related sites at the request of law enforcement.
In the same way does Rep. Goodlatte, Sen. Kyl, in his bill, Prohibition on Funding of Unlawful Internet Gambling, makes it illegal for gambling businesses to just accept bank cards, electronic transfers, checks and other kinds of payment for the purpose on placing illegal bets, but his bill doesn’t address the ones that place bets.
The bill submitted by Rep. Leach, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, is basically a copy of the bill submitted by Sen. Kyl. It is targeted on preventing gambling businesses from accepting bank cards, electronic transfers, checks, and other payments, and such as the Kyl bill makes no changes from what is currently legal, or illegal.
In a quote from Goodlatte we have “Jack Abramoff’s total disregard for the legislative process has allowed Internet gambling to carry on thriving into what’s now a twelve billion-dollar business which not only hurts individuals and their own families but makes the economy suffer by draining billions of dollars from the United States and serves as a car for money laundering.”
There are several interesting points here.
First of all, we have only a little misdirection about Jack Abramoff and his disregard for the legislative process. This comment, and others that have been made, follow the logic that; 1) Jack Abramoff was opposed to these bills, 2) Jack Abramoff was corrupt, 3) to avoid being related to corruption you need to vote for these bills. This is of course absurd. When we followed this logic to the extreme, we ought to return and void any bills that Abramoff supported, and enact any bills he opposed, whatever the content of the bill. Legislation ought to be passed, or not, based on the merits of the proposed legislation, not based on the standing of one individual.
As well, when Jack Abramoff opposed previous bills, he did so on behalf of his client eLottery, attempting to obtain the sale of lottery tickets on the internet excluded from the legislation. Ironically, the protections he was seeking are included in this new bill, since state run lotteries would be excluded. Jack Abramoff therefore would probably support this legislation since it provides him what he was looking for. That does not stop Goodlatte and others from using Abramoff’s recent disgrace as a means to make their bill look better, thus making it not just an anti-gambling bill, but somehow an ant-corruption bill as well, while at once rewarding Abramoff and his client.
Next, is his statement that online gambling “hurts individuals and their families” ;.I presume that what he is discussing listed here is problem gambling. Let’s set the record straight. Only a small percentage of gamblers become problem gamblers, not just a small percentage of the populace, but merely a small percentage of gamblers.
In addition, Goodlatte would have you imagine that Internet gambling is more addictive than casino gambling. Sen. Kyl moved as far as to call online gambling “the crack cocaine of gambling”, attributing the quote to some un-named researcher. To the contrary, researchers have shown that gambling on the Internet is no further addictive than gambling in a casino. As a matter of fact, electronic gambling machines, within casinos and race tracks all over the country are far more addictive than online gambling.
In research by N. Dowling, D. Smith and T. Thomas at the School of Health Sciences, RMIT University, Bundoora, Australia “There’s a broad view that electronic gaming is the absolute most ‘addictive’ form of gambling, in so it contributes more to causing problem gambling than any other gambling activity. Therefore, electronic gaming machines have already been called the ‘crack-cocaine’ of gambling” ;.
As to Sen. Kyls claim about “crack cocaine” include “Cultural busybodies have long known that in post this-is-your-brain-on-drugs America, the simplest way to win attention for a puppy cause is to compare it to some scourge that already scares the bejesus out of America” ;.And “During the 1980s and ’90s, it was only a little different. Then, a troubling new trend wasn’t officially on people radar until someone dubbed it “the brand new crack cocaine.” And “On his Vice Squad weblog, University of Chicago Professor Jim Leitzel notes that a Google search finds experts declaring slot machines (The New York Times Magazine), video slots (the Canadian Press) and casinos (Madison Capital Times) the “crack cocaine of gambling,” respectively. Leitzel’s search also found that spam email is “the crack cocaine of advertising” (Sarasota, Fla. Herald Tribune), and that cybersex is a type of sexual “spirtual crack cocaine” (Focus on the Family)” ;.
As we can see, calling something the “crack cocaine” has changed into a meaningless metaphor, showing only that anyone making the statement feels it is important. But we knew that Rep. Goodlatte, Rep. Leach and Sen. Kyl felt that the matter was important or they wouldn’t have brought the proposed legislation forward.
