Crackdown on Online Gambling Sites

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The FBI has gone after some of the leaders of the online poker industry.

The article gives all the details, but my question, which I think is more interesting for the purposes of discussion, is should online gambling be illegal to begin with? I mean, casinos aren't illegal. The arguement that I often hear is that it is impossible to verify the person's age, but in most states it is legal to purchase both cigarettes and alcohol online, and they cannot verify the person's age either.

So what is it then? Are we prosecuting something that shouldn't be illegal to begin with?

 

What's the story with collecting taxes on online casinos? Brick and mortar casinos are normally a huge cash cow for states. Could be this is a collection enforcement issue behind the scenes, although it seems like it would be moreso a state issue.

 

I thought about that. Casinos generate profits. And they probably could be taxed at the federal level as well. I assumed that the reason they were based outside the US was for the purposes of tax shelters. I never knew they were illegal - many of these sites have been in operation for years, and it's not like they did it secretly - some of these sites were openly advertised on TV. I know I've seen comercials for "Full Tilt Poker" Online. Why did it take years for criminal charges to take place if what they were doing was illegal all along?

What about the ones currently in operation that are NOT in Nevada and New Jersey? States not named New Jersey and Nevada that have casinos (and I've actually been to a few of them): Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In other words, my home state and every state that borders with my home state has casinos. All of the casinos I mentioned have card games, table games, and slot machines, so there's a lot of stuff out there outside those two states. The only difference I see is that Nevada and New Jersey have a city (Las Vegas and Atlantic City, respectively) devoted to casinos. The ones in the states I mentioned have casions as stand-alone entities, usually located within or nearby racetracks.

 

High stakes casinos are fairly rare, but little ones are all over the place. Perhaps it has to do with the betting caps?

 

I find the jurisdiction angle very interesting. Can you be prosecuted for selling something that's legal in your country but illegal in the purchaser's? I can't see the US being very helpful if a Middle Eastern country decided it wanted to put the management of Playboy on trial. They probably can catch the gambling sites on fraud for lying to the banks though, even if gambling turns out not to be illegal.

I think the main argument against online casinos is that they're especially dangerous to addicts. They're always available and with no human interaction there's no one who can keep an eye on you and tell you to stop. Not that traditional casinos are run by saints but there might be some staff member or another customer who could tell if you have a serious problem.

I spent a summer working as a cashier in a seaside arcade with slot and poker machines. It was troubling seeing the amount some of our regulars spent on the poker machines. Not to the extent that I feel guilty for wrecking their lives or anything but it was very expensive entertainment. They'd win big occassionally but in the long run the house always wins. I'd be fearful of what could happen to people like that on an online site, so I'm against the idea of online gambling.

 

Bugger it. You buy insurance...that's just gambling. You're gambling on havign a car crash or dying ot going into hopital or somethign

 

I've alway said that, although my example was buying life insurance. At its base, you're placing a bet that you're going to die.

 

Very few people get addicted to purchasing insurance. And many is the happy family who won't have to sell their house because a loved one had the foresight to get insurance. I hear what you guys are saying but there's a huge frigging difference.

I've seen firsthand the dangers inherent in gambling, and while I am all for freedom of action, there has to be some controls in place to help those on the cusp. The die hard gamblers won't be deterred, of course, and the die hard anti gamblers wouldn't gamble regardless, but the ones who are salvageable are the ones who the law should back up.

Bottom line, it can become an addiction, one that should be taken as seriously as drug, alcohol, or sex addiction.

 

I agree with that, but the thing is, we don't really do anything to stop the other kinds of addictions either. Sex addiction is kind of a separate issue, but if you're addicted to things like drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol, you can usually get your fix within minutes.

There are several places where I live that sell alcohol and/or cigarettes that I can get to in under 5 minutes in my car, and some of these places are open 24 hours a day. (Granted, stores that sell alcoholic beverages other than beer have set hours of operation, but you can get beer at convenience stores, and that goes for cigarettes as well.)

While I don't use recreational illegal drugs, I imagine if I did, I'd know how to get my hands on that stuff relatively quickly as well.

The point is, there's tons of stuff that you can get addicted to, we don't generally try to prevent the other types of addictions, and satifsying those addictions isn't much more inconvenient than logging onto a computer. (Like I said, if I was an alcoholic, I can get beer in 5 minutes, regardless of the time of day.)

 

I don't believe this has anything to do with morals and trying to protect the people. This has to do with protecting the monopoly that the big gambling companies have.

Personally, I find it wrong that the government is doing this for Vegas, AC, and the Indians.

 

In many contexts, you are right -- but in many other contexts, we do do something -- not a helluva lot, but we do take some steps. Let me elucidate:

At a bar, servers are often trained to recognize inebriation and cut people off if they are too drunk. At a restaurant, I heard one rule of thumb, which I don't know has ever been a policy or not, but the policy was that people couldn't have a liquor bill higher than their food bill! In addition, at this restaurant, food had to be ordered and still on the table before drinks would be delivered. Cities have regulations on how late bars (and liquor stores) can stay open, where they can be located, and how many can be clustered in one place.

With cigs, it's the same thing -- we have many laws and regulation in place on where, when, how, and to whom smokes can be sold. It doesn't drastically curtail the addicts, but I believe that experience has proven that it does cut down on the creation of new addicts.

Online gambling -- and indeed, online everything! -- is a relatively new phenomenon. I can see there being major growing pains as the government strives to find the right balance between personal privacy rights and effective laws that limit dangerous actions.

 

That happens here in the US too - a bartender can cut you off if he feels you've had too much to drink. As far as going to a convenience store, I suppose they could do that if you were visibly intoxicated when you arrived there.

In my younger years, my friends and I would be in trouble. I remember the one night we went out to a bar/restaurant, and our tab at the end of the night was $350, of which about $50 - tops - was food.

That's definitely the case in the US. While it varies from one state to the next, but bars and liquor stores cannot sell alcohol after a certain time of night. That regulation isn't in place for convenience stores though. While I've attempted to buy beer at a convenience store at 3 AM, I imagine I could if I wanted to.

 

Wouldn't you think that's more to limit the bar's liability and less to help the drinker with a problem though?

That policy would seem really unlikely at topless bars, where I would think food would come in a distant third.

 

Wow! Here in my jurisdiction, convenience stores aren't allowed to sell alcohol at all.

 

Around here a bartender is required by law to cut you off if you are too drunk. It is illegal to serve alcohol to obviously intoxicated people and even if it doesn't happen often it does happen that bars and restaurants lose their license over it.

 

Why are Americans so mardy about pointless things? It was only a few months ago they banned a UK teen from the country for sending a stupid drunken message to the White House. They need to chill the fook out and stop being so precious.

 

It's not a universal law that applies in all states. Basically the breakdown is like this: If you sell anything beyond beer - so not just hard liquor, but also wine, it must be purchased at a liquor store. As for beer, it varies by state. I live in Maryland, and convenience stores can sell beer. Prior to that, I lived in Pennsylvania, and convenience stores there were not allowed to sell beer (at least at the time I live there - that could have changed in recent years).

So the breakdown is:

Beer - it depends on the state.

Wine and Hard Liquor - can only be sold in liquor stores.