This is part 3 of a multipart number of articles regarding proposed anti-gambling legislation. In this informative article, I continue the discussion of the reasons claimed to create this legislation necessary, and the reality that exist in real life, including the Jack Abramoff connection and the addictive nature of online gambling.
The legislators are trying to protect us from something, or are they? The whole lot seems a little confusing to express the least.
As mentioned in previous articles, the House, and the Senate, are once again considering the matter of “Online Gambling” ;.Bills have 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 the stated intention of updating the Wire Act to outlaw all types of online gambling, to create it illegal for a gambling business to accept credit and electronic transfers, and to force ISPs and Common Carriers to block use of gambling related sites at the request of law enforcement.
Just like does Rep. Goodlatte, Sen. Kyl, in his bill, Prohibition on Funding of Unlawful Internet Gambling, helps it be illegal for gambling businesses to accept credit cards, electronic transfers, checks and other styles of payment with the aim on placing illegal bets, but his bill does not address the ones that place bets.
The bill submitted by Rep. Leach, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, is actually a copy of the bill submitted by Sen. Kyl. It targets preventing gambling businesses from accepting credit cards, electronic transfers, checks, and other payments, and such as the Kyl bill makes no changes from what happens to be 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 is 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 an automobile for the money laundering.”
There are many interesting points here.
To start with, we have 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 against these bills, 2) Jack Abramoff was corrupt, 3) to avoid being related to corruption you must vote for these bills. This is needless to say absurd. If we followed this logic to the extreme, we ought to return back and void any bills that Abramoff supported, and enact any bills he opposed, regardless of content of the bill. Legislation should really be passed, or not, on the basis of the merits of the proposed legislation, not on the basis of the reputation of one individual.
As well, when Jack Abramoff opposed previous bills, he did so for 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 most notable new bill, since state run lotteries will be excluded. Jack Abramoff therefore may possibly 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 way to make their bill look better, thus making it not only an anti-gambling bill, but somehow an ant-corruption bill as well, while at the same time rewarding Abramoff and his client.
Next, is his statement that online gambling “hurts individuals and their families” ;.I presume that what he’s referring to here’s problem gambling. Let’s set the record straight. Merely 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 might have you think that Internet gambling is more addictive than casino gambling. Sen. Kyl has gone in terms of to call online gambling “the crack cocaine of gambling”, attributing the quote for some un-named researcher. To the contrary, researchers have shown that gambling on the Internet is no more addictive than gambling in a casino. As a matter of fact, electronic gambling machines, found in casinos and race tracks throughout the country tend to be 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 is a general view that electronic gaming is the most ‘addictive’ type of gambling, in that it contributes more to causing problem gambling than any other gambling activity. Therefore, electronic gaming machines have been referred to as the ‘crack-cocaine’ of gambling” ;.
Concerning Sen. Kyls claim about “crack cocaine” include “Cultural busybodies have long known that in post this-is-your-brain-on-drugs America, the best way to win attention for a puppy cause would be to compare it for some scourge that already scares the bejesus out of America” ;.And “Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, it was 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 the 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 discovered that spam email is “the crack cocaine of advertising” (Sarasota, Fla. Herald Tribune), and that cybersex is some sort of sexual “spirtual crack cocaine” (Focus on the Family)” ;.
As we are able to see, calling something the “crack cocaine” has changed into a meaningless metaphor, showing only that the person making the statement feels it’s 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.