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Study Guide

Morality of Online Gambling

  • Negative Social Impact:
    • (NEW!)Online Gambling is more accessable to minors with more anonymity and less identity verification.
    • (NEW!)Compulsive Gamblers theoretically damage the economy by not contributing in other areas.
    • (NEW!)Internet anonymity brings potential for defrauding gamblers and laundering dirty money.
    • (NEW!)Advertizing for internet gambling appears on sites accessible to youngsters.
    • (NEW!)"With online gambling people can do it in their bathroom" -Representative Frank Wolf (R) Virginia, addressing the House regarding online gaming
    • Gambling has been linked to higher suicide rates, domestic violence, organized crime, white collar crime, etc.
    • Online gambling makes it significantly easier to gamble, and could promote addiction.
  • Positive Social Impact:
    • (NEW!)Online gambling is a thriving economical presence, with estimates of $12 billion each year in revenue.
    • Online gambling could be taxed, and revenue could support various government programs/charities.
    • (NEW!)Legalized online gambling could result in successful regulation, rather than simply forcing the companies and providers overseas where organized crime and corruption are more likely.
    • (NEW!)Online gambling allows for both privacy and the free right of choice for the individual, rather than letting the government stipulate which personal decisions a person should be allowed to make.
    • (NEW!)Online poker and other multiplayer cardgames have much better odds than the legal vices of lottery or horseracing, resulting in notably less potential lives laid waste as a result of gambling addiciton.

Legality of Online Gambling

  • Many of the laws, especially the Wire Act regarding phone records, are vague, or were written before the emergence of the internet.
  • (NEW!)The US Court of Appeals decided that online gambling involving "games of chance" are not expressly illegal.
  • (NEW!)The WTO declared that the US was not allowed to obstuct online gambling out of the country as it stands in the way of free trade, and gambling is a major business in several WTO countries outside the US.
  • (NEW!)In spite of WTO ruling, the House recently passed a bill restricting online gambling in the US, and began an national crackdown, arresting an international gambling site president.

Problems with Prohibition

  • (NEW!) Prohibition is a wonderous and time tested solution. Just look how well it improved the situation with alcoholism from 1911-1914 and from 1927-1930.
    • (corrected)The U.S. government cannot shut down international sites, nor can they monitor every site on the internet. Also, they have no authority to regulate trade outside the country.
    • Extradition is not possible, and prosecuting individual betters would be difficult.
  • Negative side-effects of prohibition
    • It would force people to become criminals, and resort to unorthodox methods to resolve business problems.
    • Depending on how it's enforced, placing the burden on ISPs could damage the internet as well as property rights

Opposition to Online Gambling

  • Various religious, political, and consumer advocate groups oppose gambling for many of the reasons discussed above. But there is also the classic "baptist and bootlegger" problem: those most opposed to gambling would be religious groups and groups that have a strong desire to protect their offline gambling business.