Online Poker

I was reading an interesting article published on the Los Angeles Times website this morning regarding Internet gambling in the United States. You can check out the full piece here.

Michael Hiltzik argues that "the activity [online gambling] is unstoppable, so let's regulate it."

That statement alone is sure to hit more than a few nerves with the conservatives on this topic, but he makes a good point. The USA is one of the few countries on the globe that has passed any law related to online gambling, yet it boasts the most popular gambling venues, poker tournaments, and gambling-based television channels in the world. Hypocrisy?

"Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have both introduced bills in Congress to lift a federal ban on much online play and clarify the law, which is ambiguous in the way it defines online gambling and is difficult even for the banks it concerns and lawyers to understand.

Their goals include taking a piece of the action for the U.S. Treasury, on the political principle that sins always seem less deadly when there's money to be squeezed from them. The consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated in 2007 that legalization could yield as much as $43 billion in tax revenue over 10 years if it includes sports betting, $34 billion even if it doesn't."

Hiltzik isn't one to beat around the bush, and Internet gambling seems to be a subject quite close to his heart.

"It's fair to say that the American approach to Internet gambling, which is legal in much of the rest of the world, is absurd. (Indeed, the federal ban placed the U.S. in Dutch with international trading partners that host online gambling companies, which have complained to the World Trade Organization that it violates trade treaties the U.S. signed.) State laws are wildly inconsistent and sometimes hypocritically excessive.

This is always a great topic to discuss, so why not state your opinion on the current Internet gambling laws by commenting below.

-TheDoctor