The votes turned out 42-21 in favor of the proposal by Democratic Representative Barney Frank to take step towards legalizing Internet gambling. The bill would make poker and a few other games legal for online gambling as well as licensed, taxed-and casino-controlled.
The U.S. Treasury would get 2% of player’s bet deposits and 6% would go to either the state or American Indian tribal treasuries. Even the feds would collect a separate wager tax off of gambling profit. States will be able to opt out if they really want to. This vote makes it more likely that the Internet gambling issue will go before the House, possibly later this year.
Instead of banning online gaming websites the new legislation would regulate US-based sites instead. Bets on sporting events would remain off limits and the minimum age for online gambling would be raised to 21 instead of 18. The Poker Players Alliance supports this initiative as well with Alfonse DiAmato, chairman of the organization saying: 'I'm glad the Financial Services Committee today overwhelmingly chose to act and protect Americans as well as preserve the fundamental freedoms of adults and the Internet.'
The US offshore Internet gambling market is worth around $5.5 billion and that figure would skyrocket should the US legalize online gaming. It is said that online gambling will add $42 billion to the U.S. Treasury in 10 years and $30 billion for the states and participating tribes. The bill would block credit card bets but will allow debit card transactions.
It is said that of American gamblers, even less of 1% of the population has an addiction problem to gambling. Is it really fair that because some people are prone to addiction, the rest of the population should be held back from possible addictive triggers? What about alcohol or cigarettes? Two other much more damaging and destructive habits that are legal to the public while gambling continue to be fought as a social evil.
The moral argument defense doesn’t make much sense as many other problem behaviors stem, quite often, from people’s inability to choose, from the repression of proposed social ills people become all the more drawn to what is forbidden.
Gambling has the potential to improve lives with an influx of jobs becoming available, more money pumped into the economy and to relieve a mountain of existing debt. Gambling has been a part of human culture on every continent in every day and age, it has been a form of human entertainment, a form of competition, an exhibition of skill and wit, a way to experience risk, and an outlet for human superstition within a social context, and it isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.
04 August, 2010