60 Minutes Looks At Online Gambling

READ MORE: 60 Minutes, Gambling, Gambling Laws, Internet Gambling, Online Gambling, Online Poker

Last night, CBS’ 60 Minutes ran a short piece on Internet gambling. Did they cover any new ground? Hardly. CBS reported that online gambling is a huge industry, illegal in the US, and based offshore. We learned that the Vegas casino companies want in, but are hamstrung by our laws that prevent them from competing in this market. They also mentioned - repeatedly - that the government’s stance on Internet gambling costs our government billions in potential tax revenue every year. After the jump, we’ll loop you in to some of the buzz around the ‘Net this morning in the wake of this report…

EAR TO THE GROUND

Dan from Pokerati thinks there’s a distinct difference between playing poker and shooting craps online, and maybe we need to look at this as a society:

“I’m not sure it went far enough in differentiating online poker from other forms of online gambling. Maybe that’s relevant, maybe it’s not. But it does suggest that the masses are starting to be made aware of the need to change all sorts of outdated poker laws that make just about every person reading this site a criminal.”

Iggy at Guinness and Poker found a 2+2 Forums thread that sparked some conversation:

(Cribbed from the 2+2 Forums) This was great! Newbies learned that:
· Party Poker is the #1 most popular site. Guess that’s probably a good place to go then!
· Whenever I see a ‘.net’ ad, they really mean I should go to .com for real gambling!
· If I’m an underage minor, Golden Palace is an excellent place to get to play!
· 12 Million Americans are playing, and they haven’t complained - maybe this ‘internet gambling’ isn’t so shady after all!

Of course, laws would need to be changed for Internet gambling to be legalized. Make You Go Hmm raises the salient point about the winds of change (and provides the screen shot for this post):

Basically the terrestrial casino point of view: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. One comment I found particularly curious: that when the US gets an “enlightened” President and Attorney General internet gambling will be regulated, taxed and legalized.

CBS’ News own 60 Minutes site features our favorite part of the discussion. Late in the interview, Nigel Payne, the owner of SportingBet.com and Paradise Poker, asks for one argument against regulating Internet gambling. Lesley Stahl replies, “Because it’s bad for you.” Here’s the outcome:

Payne doesn’t think people will ever stop gambling.

“Do you think the Internet’s suddenly going to go away? So what are we going to do in ten years time, when this industry is ten times bigger than it is today?” ask Payne. “I often say to people, ‘Please give me one solid plausible argument why you shouldn’t regulate it.’”

And Payne rejects the argument that it is bad for you. “If you regulate it, you control it. If you regulate it, you set limits. Is that bad, when the comparator is ‘Ah, just let them do what they want.’ Is that really bad? I don’t think it is.”

Did anything get solved? Not really. If you gamble online you probably know you’re breaking the law, and despite the US Government’s attempts to try and make gambling more difficult, there will be no way to shut off the spigot completely. So until the US Government finds a way to make this morally palatable to the voting public, we’re probably going to be stuck in the land of denial. With or without the government’s approval, keep tossing the cards. With millions of people gambling on the ‘Net on a weekly basis, there’s very little chance our government can do anything but create circumventable laws and continue to bark about this non-problem. See you at the tables.

War on Poker: CriminalPoker.com [Pokerati]
I Sure Like These Short Little Posts [Guinness and Poker]
60 Minutes special focuses on internet gambling [Make You Go Hmm]
I-Gaming: Illegal and Thriving [CBS News]

Jesse Ventura To Take One For The Team

READ MORE: Gambling, Gambling Laws, Jesse Ventura, Online Gambling

Think of all the ways celebrities brighten our dreary little lives. We laugh at their little peccadillos, their petty atrocities, their shocking acts of criminal self-indulgence. If kept at a distance, it’s all good clean fun. But how often has a celebrity actually touched your life in a positive way. For far too many of us, that answer is, sadly, not often enough.

But thay may change for those of us who like to partake in the occasional online game of chance. After the jump, we’ll dig in and cut through the shit and tell you why Jesse Ventura is going to end up as the Rosa Parks of online gambling…

JESSE “THE GUINEA PIG” VENTURA

We’ve already brought to your attention the fact that Jesse Ventura, Brooke Burke, Jim Kelly, and other famous people have signed on to act as pitchpersons for various online casinos. They’ve done this though there might be a wee question of these casino’s legality:

“[T]he government has said in the past that it could prosecute Americans who promote and assist such foreign operations for effectively aiding and abetting their illegal activities.

“There’s a good chance they are criminally liable for the crime itself,” said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California and the author of “The Law of Internet Gaming.” For celebrities who draw attention from law enforcement officials, he said, “the downside danger is enormous.”

That’s a bit ominous. But there’s no such thing as a stupid question, right, so let’s ask the government what they think of the idea:

The Justice Department declined to comment for this article.

Hmm. The Federal Government, which recently came up with the wacky idea that they should have the power to detain any American citizen and transport them to a tropical island for a permanent vacation, is keeping mum about their intentions? Go figure.

But come on, these are celebrities we’re talking about. Nothing bad happens to them! No one would let anything bad happen to them! Right?

“For his part, Mr. Ventura said he was not aware that federal law prohibits Internet gambling operations; his management company, he said, told him that the deal would not be a problem.”

Whew! His management company said there would be no problem! His managment company, which is tasked with finding opportunities for a man with rather a wide-ranging resume. I’m sure they did the proper due diligence. But perhaps this isn’t fair to Jesse the Body. After all, who among us consulted with an attorney versed in this section of the law before we plunked down $100 bucks to play a little online blackjack?

Which is why we should perhaps be grateful for Gov. Ventura’s actions. Remember, back in the good old days of the Industrial Revolution, coal miners would take a canary in a cage along with them into the depths? A canary was the most high-tech warning system available at the time—so long as Tweety kept tweeting, the miners knew the air wasn’t contaminated. If their little yellow friend was lying unconscious at the bottom of the cage, it was time to boogie upwards. Well, it’s possible that these celebrity spokesfolks may act as a canary for we degenerate gamblers. If you flip on CNN some morning and find shotgun-toting federal agents frog-marching Jesse Ventura toward an anoymous black van, it might be time for you to cash out of Party Poker and invest those funds in a manner the government finds more palatable. Like, Halliburton.

Celebrities Taking a Gamble [NY Times}
Previously: Stars May Get The Big House For Offshore Gambling Promotions [Oddjack]

How People Really Feel About Nova Scotia Gambling Provisions

READ MORE: Gambling Laws, Odd

Problem Gambling Law Called Worthless [The Globe and Mail]
Previously: Here’s One Way to Handle Losing Money at the Casino [Oddjack]

Online Gambling: Why Can’t We Play Craps At Bellagio.com?

READ MORE: Gambling Laws, Online Casinos, PartyPoker, Poker

The only thing we hate worse than articles that try to tell us what’s “HOT” and what’s “NOT,” is any show on E! or VH1 that makes liberal use of the word “fabulous.” As if we give a shit whether Britney Spears carries Fendi or Gucci.

What about online gambling? HOT or NOT? After the jump, we’ll let a magazine have its say, and speculate why all the casinos want a piece…

We couldn’t resist taking a peek at an article from Information Week talking about what’s hot and what’s not in IT. Online gambling, apparently, is NOT hot. Predictably, things like Wi-Fi hot spots and slide rules and graphing calculators are HOT, but that’s another blog. Where the article makes a bad logic leap is from “(D)omestic casinos are trying to figure out how to get their share of the booming online market” to “Foxwoods Resort Casino is hoping to bring back a feature of its Web site that allows gamblers to check from home the winning status of lottery tickets purchased at the casino.”

We’re pretty sure checking the status on the Internet of a ticket purchased at the casino directly isn’t what Harrah’s and other US-based casino companies are after on the Internet. They’re after the dollars, or more specifically, the profit margin. From KyrosLaw:

While it may cost up to $300 million to build a new resort casino, ICI’s (Internet Casinos, Inc.) virtual casino was developed for only $1.5 million and employs only seventeen (17) individuals as opposed to thousands for a traditional casino. ICI estimates that the company averages about a twenty four (24%) profit margin, versus the typical U.S. casino, which ranges between eight percent (8%) to sixteen (16%) of each dollar wagered.

No free drinks, no busty cocktail waitresses, no Wayne Newton stage extravaganza, and no guys on the sidewalk shooing the porn-slappers away from the door? Low overhead = high margins. It doesn’t take a Masters’ in Economics to figure that equation out. We’re left scratching our heads as to how the gambling industry hasn’t bought off enough lawmakers to give Internet gaming the Stars-and-Stripes seal of legal approval. Right now there are about eleven Internet gambling impresarios laughing their balls off while sipping daquiris through platinum-plated straws on the island of Antigua who aren’t too worried that Vegas will branch out to compete with their sites.

It remains absolutely astonishing that the government isn’t willing to let American companies compete with Party Gaming and the other island-based online casinos, and instead tries to legislate against gambling they just can’t control. Makes no sense to us. Then again, it’s been 35 years since Woodstock, and pot still somehow hasn’t been legalized, and that’s pretty much just as dumb. So long as they don’t try to limit our access to porno, we’ll still be cooler than Canada.

IT Confidential: IM Cool, Hot-Spots Hot, Online Gambling Not [Information Week]
Internet, Online Gambling, and Gaming Law [KyrosLaw]