That is part 3 of a multipart series of articles regarding proposed anti-gambling legislation. In this information, I continue the discussion of the reason why claimed to make this legislation necessary, and the facts that exist in actuality, including the Jack Abramoff connection and the addictive nature of online gambling.
The legislators are attempting to protect us from something, or are they? The whole thing seems only a little confusing to say the least.
As previously mentioned in previous articles, the House, and the Senate, are once again considering the matter of “Online Gambling” ;.Bills have now 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 got the stated intention of updating the Wire Act to outlaw all kinds of online gambling, to make it illegal for a gambling business to just accept credit and electronic transfers, and to force ISPs and Common Carriers to block usage of gambling related sites at the request of law enforcement.
In the same way does Rep. Goodlatte, Sen. Kyl, in his bill, Prohibition on Funding of Unlawful Internet Gambling, makes it illegal for gambling businesses to just accept bank cards, electronic transfers, checks and other designs of payment with the aim on placing illegal bets, but his bill does not address those who 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 focuses on preventing gambling businesses from accepting bank cards, electronic transfers, checks, and other payments, and such as the Kyl bill makes no changes to what is legal, or illegal.
In a quote from Goodlatte we’ve “Jack Abramoff’s total disregard for the legislative process has allowed Internet gambling to carry on thriving into what’s now a twelve billion-dollar business which not merely hurts individuals and their families but makes the economy suffer by draining billions of dollars from the United States and serves as a vehicle for cash laundering.”
There are many interesting points here.
To begin with, we’ve only 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) in order to avoid being connected with corruption you should vote for these bills. That is needless to say absurd. If we followed this logic to the extreme, we must go back and void any bills that Abramoff supported, and enact any bills that he opposed, regardless of the content of the bill. Legislation should be passed, or not, on the basis of the merits of the proposed legislation, not on the basis of the standing of one individual.
As well, when Jack Abramoff opposed previous bills, he did so for his client eLottery, attempting to get the sale of lottery tickets over the internet excluded from the legislation. Ironically, the protections he was seeking are included in this new bill, since state run lotteries would be excluded. Jack Abramoff therefore could 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 an effective 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 once rewarding Abramoff and his client.
Next, is his statement that online gambling “hurts individuals and their families” ;.I presume that what he’s talking about here is problem gambling. Let’s set the record straight. Just a small percentage of gamblers become problem gamblers, not a small percentage of the populace, but merely a small percentage of gamblers.
In addition, Goodlatte might have you imagine that Internet gambling is more addictive than casino gambling. Sen. Kyl has gone as far as to call online gambling “the crack cocaine of gambling”, attributing the quote with a un-named researcher. To the contrary, researchers have shown that gambling on the Internet is no longer addictive than gambling in a casino. As a matter of fact, electronic gambling machines, present in casinos and race tracks all over the country are far 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 probably the most ‘addictive’ form of gambling, in that it contributes more to causing problem gambling than any gambling activity. As such, electronic gaming machines have now 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 dog cause would be to compare it with a scourge that already scares the bejesus out of America” ;.And “During the 1980s and ’90s, it absolutely was only a little different. Then, a troubling new trend wasn’t officially on the public radar until someone dubbed it “the newest crack cocaine.” And “On his Vice Squad weblog, University of Chicago Professor Jim Leitzel notes a 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 could see, calling something the “crack cocaine” has become a meaningless metaphor, showing only that the individual 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.