mimo2005

The European Union has accepted a US deal which will keep continental gambling and betting companies out of the lucrative American market.

The bilateral agreement, which follows the Bush administration's decision to clamp down on online gambling, will give EU service suppliers access to new trade opportunities in certain sectors in the US, in lieu of America's decision to keep its gambling and betting markets shut.

America has offered openings in postal and courier, research and development, and storage and warehouse sectors as compensation. The precise value of the deal is unknown.

http://news.independent.co.uk/busine...cle3260786.ece

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EnglishPaul

Quite a price for Bush trying to do the right thing.

Drew1369

Yes because we all know that the WTO is the shining glory of fairness and good times with only the best interest of the world at heart...

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EnglishPaul

Do I detect cynicism?

I don't know much about the WTO, but I think your view is probably well founded!
Still, good on Bush; don't think it will make much difference though.

yustr

How is it the right thing?

Where does he think he gets the moral authority to tell me that playing on-line poker is wrong? Where are all the "free market" conservatives on this one? It's OK to let the market dictate housing prices or interest rates but we can't let a handful of folk decide how to spend their discretionary income?

(Rest assured poker players: it will become perfectly legal once the Congress passes a tax on it.)

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40sondacurb

When people throw away money I'd prefer they do it in my yard rather than across the pond.

What ever his motivations it will probably help the economy in the end.

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EnglishPaul

Bush thinks its right.
Personally I think that this is an issue that reaches farther than the individual. Should someone develop a gambling problem, the chances are that it affects many lives, some of which the state is bound to intervene with.
I also see the internet as a special case. (Perhaps only for up to our generation) things done on the computer can seem disconnected from real life. Unlike a proper casino, there is an inbuilt comfort interacting with a computer and consequences can seem far away. So not only can people not feel that they are actually risking finances, but unlike in a proper casino there is no duty of care or someone looking out for you. Thats not to paint a picture of a casino as a place looking out for your interest, but to some extent they are.
So, yes I think I would clamp down on internet gambling in favour of casinos. Its not removing someones right to gamble, its just containing it to slightly safer places.
Containing the freedom of the individual for the benefit of the many; yes I'm OK with that, its just part of living within a society rather than a country.

Nik00117

Paypal ladies and gents as simple as that.

I'm sorry but getting around this law is simple as pie, how is a site going to truly know if your in America, or Asia? They don't thats why, I do a bit of online gambling here and there like going to partypoker.com and putting down 20 bucks playing until I go bust or double is my ploicy. Typically I double, but if I bust then hey, chances are it has lasted me a long time normally.

Gambling is up to the individual and his freedom to gamble should not be infringed upon by the government.

This will force users to go undergrond to less legitmate sites which could cause quite a bit of finanical ruin because they get scamed. Because the legitmate sites that actually do this as their business and have no interset or notion to ripe you off are going be going the legal way and banning US players.

Make a practice go undergrond, and you get dirty results. YOu don't put your dirty laurdy up to dry in the basement, you put it up where its sunny and warm so it drys.

Same concept applies in this instance as well.

-=Rousseau=-

So the fact that people are going to do it anyway is a good reason not to outlaw it? The same argument can be made for almost anything... People are going to do what they want to in the end, though some will be deterred by law. Anti-drug laws make drugs underground. Should cocaine, meth, etc all be legal then? Surely making them legal would allow them to be produced with more safety...

Pretty much any crime is up to the individual. My freedom to download movies from the web, drive as fast as I want, etc "should not be infringed upon by the government" as well... :D If you're saying that the government should not try to tell people what choices they can and can't make, then you've got to be more specific. Everything pretty much is a choice. The government's job in some regards is keeping you from making choices that hurt others. If you can prove that gambling does not hurt others, good job. If you have anyone dependent on you financially, say a son, daughter, or in some cases a wife, then financially ruinous things like gambling harm them.

Oh, and a site could easily determine your location through IP... You could get around it with a proxy, but some people don't know that. (Is there a way of detecting proxies?) I've already seen some sites that do that, automatically filling in location for weather, etc. Or for example a British news site that filtered me out. (Can't remember which one, got the "you aren't from here" message and left. it had videos and wanted to control bandwidth...)

And I don't think anyone hangs their dirty laundry anywhere :D. They wash it. Or metaphorically, people hide it - not parade it out for everyone to see. Which is what I guess you meant lol.

EnglishPaul

No. We in Britain only let you see the propaganda generated news. The real news is hidden behind clever IP locaters. Otherwise you would know that the aliens have landed and are helping the lib dem party. Damn, gave it away...
or is this just propaganda; I know where you live!

RedScott

It's amusing that people refer to gambling as a "crime" but somehow the Lottery is different. Funny how the State doing it always makes it okay.

40sondacurb

I've never heard of someone blowing a grand on the lottery. I've also never heard of a casino that gave most of it's earnings to schools.

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-=Rousseau=-

Oh but the state makes it better by giving proceeds from lottery to students, etc . I personally don't like the lottery. There is a little bit of a divide between the lotto and pure gambling though, as for 95% of the population it is completely clear that the statistical odds of winning the lotto are virtually nil. Most people don't get into financial ruin buying lotto tickets... Only those with very low IQ buy them as anything other than a whimsical kind of thing, just for fun. The joke is that the lotto is a tax on those who can't do math.

Nik00117

In some cases, yes...

Ok gambling in America is by no means illegal... I mean I can walk into any casino and throw my life savings away and no one will care. why can't i do that online?

if you think of it at home is better in my eyes. I know playing poker online and in real life is completely different.

In real life I can't sit there and take notes on players (i do it all the time online) in real life I can't always express himself, making the game that much harder. In online poker if I loose a big hand, or I bluff my face won't give me away. Also i'm not surronded by all the distractions of a casnio.

Therefore one could agrue gambling online is safer.

I really think gambling online should be legal, I mean typically to gamble you need a CC to do that you need to be 18.

Drew1369

I think that is why... because you don't need a CC to gamble... a visa check card/debit card will suffice in most cases and any age can have one of those.

While I don't think its wrong to gamble online, but I could care less about the law cause I don't gamble onlie anyway... I think the biggest problem is that the government can't tax those winning like they can at a normal casino since its considered income... and that casinos have to report huge winnings to the IRS online casinos from other countries do not...

so what does it come down to... a moral issue... or a tax issue?

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Nik00117

Both, they call it a moral issue

Truth of the matter its money and all it is.

RedScott

I see, so it's not how you victimize someone else that makes a crime, but rather what you do with your own money.

I guess Best Buy is a criminal organization too then since people blow thousands there and they don't give the majority of their profits to schools.