12/21/24
December 29, 2003
Online betting on sports and other Internet wagering may be against U.S. law, according to Mike Fish of Sports Illustrated. "We have a gray area the size of Nevada as to the legality of online casinos and sports books, not to mention their ability to advertise on stations across the radio dial."
Anyone catch the Discovery channel (one of them, anyways) special on gambling? Basically, gambling is like religion, every culture has it. All governments that have tried to outlaw its practice have failed spectacularly (and chased revenue elsewhere). So basically, I agree with pivo. Except, I'd call it the "War on Chance Games" - all manners of non-predetermined fun will be eradicated.
posted by garfield at 05:30 PM on December 29, 2003
pivo, one can (and many have) said much the same thing about drugs, smoking and alcohol over the years so bottom line is probably to have the casinos form a PAC and start spreading that soft money around.
posted by billsaysthis at 05:30 PM on December 29, 2003
billy...exactly my point "War on Drugs", tobacco and alcohol were the basis for my comment. Should drugs be legal? Not a discussion for here, but the "War" on them has proven to be a costly miserable failure. Tobacci and alcohol are regulated, and taxes off of those two items alone represent a good chunk of change for the government. To my mind, these two avenues represent a rough model of what you will get with illegal/legal online gambling.
posted by pivo at 06:31 PM on December 29, 2003
In Britain, you can't move for bookmakers on the high street. I don't really understand the problem the USA has with gambling. After all, lotteries are allowed, so why not sports betting?
posted by salmacis at 04:31 AM on December 31, 2003
**Picture of Government with a finger in a dike labelled Online Gambling, and countless other holes spewing water popping up. ** Government can regulate it and make some money or turn millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals, at great expense and to no avail. Which means they'll probably make it illegal and launch a huge operation called the "War on the Line, Parlays, and Teasers". What's the over/under on that?