Via The Huffington Post:
The Bush administration is moving in its last weeks to finalize regulations to enforce a controversial law that seeks to block Internet gambling. The move is drawing hot protests from Democratic lawmakers and supporters of online betting.
“This midnight rulemaking will tie the hands of the new administration, burden the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis and contradict the stated intent of the Financial Services Committee,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., wrote this week to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Apparently, the initial “Let’s attach this gambling bit to a port security bill!” from 2006 wasn’t enough. This, again, gets filed under my “Mind your own damn business” heading. Essentially, what we’re saying is that going to AC or Vegas to do your betting is perfectly ok – but don’t dare try and do it without leaving your home. That begs the question: “What’s the difference?”
Now, there are definitely issues with online gambling. To have it be truly acceptable, we would need better identification checks. At the moment, if a kid gets his parents credit card, there’s really nothing stopping him from using it online. Granted, that applies to… any online transaction – gambling draws the biggest heat, though. Now, some people have an incredibly hard time controlling their gambling once they get going. But, if we were making laws based on the people with self-control issues, drinking would be illegal, wouldn’t it?
Don’t get confused about any of this – the answer is right in front of you. This is about one thing, and one thing only – tax revenue. The US government can’t tax online gambling, so they don’t want to allow it. Even if they tried to tax it, nearly all these operations are based outside the US. The world is global now, truly – and the laws just can’t keep up.
