That is part 3 of a multipart group of articles regarding proposed anti-gambling legislation. In this information, I continue the discussion of the reasons claimed to make this legislation necessary, and the facts that exist in real life, like the Jack Abramoff connection and the addictive nature of online gambling.
The legislators are attempting to protect us from something, or are they? Everything seems a little confusing to express the least.
As stated in previous articles, the House, and the Senate, are once more considering the problem 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, gets the stated intention of updating the Wire Act to outlaw all kinds of online gambling, to make 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.
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 accept credit cards, electronic transfers, checks and other styles of payment for the purpose on placing illegal bets, but his bill doesn’t address those that place bets.
The bill submitted by Rep. Leach, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, is basically 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 to what is currently legal, or illegal.
In a quote from Goodlatte we have “Jack Abramoff’s total disregard for the legislative process has allowed Internet gambling to continue thriving into what is 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 the money laundering.”
There are many interesting points here.
First of all, we have a little misdirection about Jack Abramoff and his disregard for the legislative process. This comment, and others which were made, follow the logic that; 1) Jack Abramoff was opposed to these bills, 2) Jack Abramoff was corrupt, 3) in order to avoid being associated with corruption you should vote for these bills. That is obviously absurd. If we followed this logic to the extreme, we should return back and void any bills that Abramoff supported, and enact any bills that he opposed, whatever the content of the bill. Legislation must be passed, or not, based on the merits of the proposed legislation, not based on the trustworthiness 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 online excluded from the legislation. Ironically, the protections he was seeking are included in this new bill, since state run lotteries could 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 means to make their bill look better, thus making it not just 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 is talking about listed here is problem gambling. Let’s set the record straight. Only a small percentage of gamblers become problem gamblers, not a small percentage of the people, but only a small percentage of gamblers.
In addition, Goodlatte might have you believe that Internet gambling is more addictive than casino gambling. Sen. Kyl moved 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 forget about addictive than gambling in a casino. As a matter of fact, electronic gambling machines, present in casinos and race tracks all around 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’ form of gambling, in that it contributes more to causing problem gambling than any other gambling activity. As a result, electronic gaming machines have been known 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 easiest way to win attention for a pet cause would be to compare it with a scourge that already scares the bejesus out of America” ;.And “Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, it had been 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 unearthed 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 changed into 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 problem was important or they wouldn’t have brought the proposed legislation forward.
