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U.S. House Clears Anti-Internet Gambling Bill
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:05 AM
from the thousands-of-hopeful-moneymakers-shut-down dept.
from the thousands-of-hopeful-moneymakers-shut-down dept.
matr0x_x writes "The U.S. has just moved one step closer to banning all Internet gambling sites when the US House of Representatives cleared an anti-Internet gambling bill yesterday. The bill is against a World Trade Organization ruling last August that stated the US must not block online gambling sites based overseas." From the article: " The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law."
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Politics: The Looming Battle Over Online Gambling 245 comments
Kadin2048 writes "According to an recent Ars Technica article, the US is headed on a 'collision course' with the WTO over off-shore Internet gambling, if a bill currently in the House of Representatives passes. The 'Internet Gambling Prohibition Act,' (PDF) which updates the 'Wire Act' to prohibit Internet gambling regardless of whether the servers are located in the US or outside of it, is in direct contravention of a WTO ruling. Proponents of the bill claim that it was narrowly defeated in previous incarnations due to the influence of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. However it seems as though some of Abramoff's biggest clients -- brick and mortar casinos -- are really the big winners from passage of this bill, since it does not prohibit gambling in person, only online."
[+]
U.S. House to Vote on Anti-Online Gambling Act 334 comments
SonicSpike writes to mention that the House is set to vote on an act designed to choke off the U.S. money flow to internet gambling. Though illegal here in the states, overseas operators are getting a good deal of business from individuals with U.S. bank accounts and credit cards. From the article: "The legislation would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to these sites. It also allows law enforcement officials to force Internet service providers to remove links to the websites. Many major credit card companies already refuse to process such payments. Opponents of the bill, including online gambling sites and a new group representing U.S. poker players, noted the growing popularity of Internet gambling and predicted that people would continue to sidestep laws."
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How it's written is what matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:2)
-nB
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:5, Insightful)
When oh when will we be able to get people in govt. that will understand that if you're 18/21, you are a freaking ADULT, and can decide for yourself matters like these?
I am so fscking tired of the government trying to legislate morality and behavior.....
Prohibition, Gambling, & Nazis (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm, ever tried looking up anti-semitic sites on Yahoo from France? Tried bidding on swastika-embellished merchandise on eBay from Germany? The problem is t
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't be using the US financial system to fund the account, it would be my British (where this is legal, regulated, and presumably taxed) account, transferring money to a British online casino (pokerstars, for example). I would be using US wires to notify them to do this, but I'm not notifying them to do anything illegal (under their laws), so not running afoul of wire statutes...
Would this work? If so, I can see a huge business opportunity for overseas banking for the little guy, as opposed to the big corporation which uses a similar dodge to avoid taxes.
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:5, Informative)
Also, members of the public are not normally eligible for an account with the Bank of England as it is more of a national financial institution (like the Federal Reserve in the USA) controlling national interest rates etc rather than a normal bank.
Re:How it's written is what matters (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, the US demands that you declare income earned even while you are not resident in the US of A (for citizens, resident aliens (green card), people with work-permits). It's like a sexual
What happened to the state rights? (Score:2)
The way I see it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The way I see it (Score:4, Funny)
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Way too many uses of the word Linux, and the find/replaced screwed up once and left Mac in there.
Re:The way I see it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The way I see it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The way I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if it was legal in the US then a percentage of the profits would be collected as income taxes, rather than being forced overseas, and could be used for government purposes such as education or blowing up things or whatever floats your boat.
Casinos generate a lot of taxes for State and Federal governments, this legislation strikes me as mis guided morality crossed with protectionism of the casinos and State lotteries.
Re:The way I see it (Score:4, Insightful)
Many state governments make money from horse racing, including bets placed over the internet. Not surprisingly, online horse racing is excluded from the ban.
And if I'm going to be taxed buying a book at Amazon, why shouldn't people be taxed who want to gamble in off-shore sites?
Gambling income is already taxed, no matter where the site is.
Once again (Score:4, Insightful)
Contact your Reps and tell them to kill this crap.
Don't bother... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cool (Score:2, Insightful)
What? No drugs, no hookers and no gambling?
Still at least you get excellent TV shows
Tribal Gaming (Score:2, Insightful)
Bill actually clears the House Financial Services (Score:5, Informative)
Middle-Earth Bowl 2006 (Score:5, Funny)
Gimme 10 G's on the Shire Hobbits in the 3rd [movie].
There's nothing in it for them-- (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government could find a way to track it and then TAX it this would not be an issue.
This is already done with alcohol, tobacco, and tangible items.
Because they cannot capture the technology genie in a bottle they can't effectively tax it.
And there are plenty of lobbyists working for taxable gambling interests who have issue with the wild-west of internet gambling as well.
All forms of gambling? (Score:5, Funny)
Ohhhhhh, not *that* kind of gambling....silly me.
Re:All forms of gambling? (Score:5, Funny)
Tell that to the people who play in the big poker competitions. See what they have to say about that.
The funny bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Buhwahahaha!! Can you say steroids?!? Can you say overblown contracts?!? There can't be a threat to something they don't have.
A group called the Poker Players Alliance opposed the legislation as well.The Poker Players Alliance - a stalwart group of poker-playing heroes, determined to defend truth, justice, and the right to draw to an inside straight!
Re:The funny bits (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
So, today, its legal to do money transfers for illegal gambling?
So, today, in my state, the government is the only legal gambling outfit? (lottery)
So, its illegal for me to do business in another country according to their laws?
I don't gamble beyond retirement funds, insurance, and whatnot.
Here is interesting, and typical situations from those that "win" the lottery: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt
In the end, nothing will change. Offshore gambling will be no different.
Lotto (Score:3, Funny)
I wish we could go back to the days of mafia run numbers rackets. They usually had 80% + return when not fixed.
Current state lottos are 50% return best case and taxable as well.
And remember, that $5 NCAA tourney poool is technically illegal in most places
Encouraging money laundering... (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, most sites offer the ability to write an e-check directly from a player's bank account to the poker site. However, virtually all sites also offer deposit via Neteller or Firepay. Since the latter method is not traceable since the 2 companies are not based in the US, players will just opt to use that method now.
So what this bill is effectively doing is encouraging people to launder how they cash in and out of poker sites. It will do nothing to stop people from actually playing.
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
"The bill now moves fo the House floor for consideration."
Not that it's impossible it will pass anyway, but please guys, get it right. It's not that hard.
This is why Congress will be changing soon.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Like the passage of the DMCA, it's just another example of a stupid congress that tries to legislate something that it knows nothing about.
From the summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? This is another example of jurisdiction over the internet being called into question. My first though on reading the article was whether restrictions would apply to the casino, the gamblers or both. I'd imagine they'd almost certainly apply to the casinos - make it illegal for casinos based on servers in the US to accept electronic payment - but would it also be illegal for US citizens to place bets?
FTFA:
I don't see how this works. If a casino is outside the U.S's jurisdiction, they shouldn't be able to be held to any U.S. laws. Sure, you can outlaw this behaviour by making it illegal for a citizen to place a bet, or more likely by forbidding U.S. financial services (e.g. banks) from processing the request, but surely you can't affect those to whom U.S. laws don't apply?
Or perhaps I'm wrong, and you can - in which case, I'm worried about the precedent that would set. Is there a limit to the extent a country can create laws that affect those who are 'unaffected' by that country's laws? To a certain extent it's reasonable, but since this case involves two jurisdictions, with the casino outside the U.S.' jurisdiction and the gambler essentially going to the virtual casino to do business, it seems unreasonable. It's like the U.S. making it illegal for Mexican casinos to allow Americans to gamble there...
Re:From the summary... (Score:3, Insightful)
I move to America, to a state where gambling is illegal.
I connect to CasinoRouletteMillions.com (made up URL; may exist, I haven't checked)
I place a bet using my credit card, on the digit 0, for my full credit limit.
It doesn't come i
Re:From the summary... (Score:3, Interesting)
The WTO did rule that the US couldn't prohibit online gambling, but it was later narrowed to only on
Ah, the Great Land of Freedom (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the problem that happens when old men who are scared of anything new make decisions that affect other people. I am confident that the main problem with online gambling is that it is harder for the government to regulate than meatspace gambling. When the pie becomes virtual, it's harder for regulators to get their piece.
I'm not a proponent of online gambling (or gambling in general, though I do participate in the occasional poker tournament or hockey pool), but I think that this sort of regulation is a little ridiculous. Legislate elsewhere, O Government, where you can be beneficial to society. Why not start on the patent system? Why not figure out how to respond to natural disasters? Why not just about anything else?
The biggest problem here is that most of the politicans making decisions like this are old men that tend not to understand what they are making decisions about. The great hope for actual freedom in the USA is that, in time, the people will start to become more acclimatized to technology and will be able to make more informed decisions about the uses thereof.
Crap! If this passes... (Score:3, Funny)
Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think I would get away with it if I moved to Thailand and set up a website partypot.com, selling baggies of marijuana to Americans? This is no different.
"More Profit for Las Vegas and Atlantic City Bill" (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm guessing that the Internet Gambling bill is like the Internet Porn [wikipedia.org] bill. After the Internet Porn bill passed, the only porn available in the U.S. on the internet was on Playboy's web site and on the web sites of other traditional porn sellers. It was not difficult to guess that porn magazines paid congress people for the bill, which was soon overturned.
Now brick-and-mortar gambling companies and maybe the lotteries run by states apparently want to restrict "gambling" to ways in which they can profit.
There is no gambling in "gambling" or "gaming". If you play enough, you will ALWAYS lose exactly the percentage they say you will lose. "Gambling" is a tax on those who don't understand the mathematics of statistics.
Bills should be named by some other group than those who sponsor them. Maybe the Internet Gambling bill should be named the "More Profit for Las Vegas and Atlantic City Bill".
--
The movie Loose Change, 2nd Edition [google.com] claims, basically, that the U.S. government was overthrown.
Re:"More Profit for Las Vegas and Atlantic City Bi (Score:3, Insightful)
You should probably qualify this with
Bout time (Score:3, Insightful)
Once we have the bulk of the population under the regulatory oversight of the criminal justice system we'll be able to force those godless, indecent hoardes into our nice, Republican cookie-cutter mold of outward piety and ethical lip service.
Long live the Republican party! Long live the Justice Department!
Since Prohibition worked so well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Most credit card companies quit processing direct transactions to PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, and Full Tilt in the last 12-18 months. I did find some local banks' debit cards will work on all 3 of those, but no majors like Visa and MasterCard.
And as some have pointed out, FirePay and other indirect transactions will not be affected.
The stupidity of this is that several major US casinos had on-line poker business plans in the works only to see the feds rain on their parade. If you had a choice to play online poker with a off-shore site or a "branded" U.S. site like Harrah's, which would you choose?
The casinos would almost certainly give incentives and freebies for on-line players to visit their brick and mortar (or plastic and neon, if you prefer) locations, helping local economies while raking in TAXABLE revenue from both.
This is a mostly useless law that will do little to impact on-line gaming in the U.S. (unless of course they contract the R.I.A.A. to kick in grandma's door while she's playing
Re:About Prohibition... (Score:3, Informative)
The Real Reason for this Legislation... (Score:3, Insightful)
It just so happens that we have scummy enough politicians in power that are happy to make it happen.
With internet gambling shut down the only place people will be able to gamble are brick/mortar casinos, and, of course, state sponsored lotteries.
What you'll hear from these politicians is some baloney about gambling addiction, or maybe even the obligatory "what about the children!?" plea. I absolutely hate these people. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
It's HR 4777. Maybe. (Score:3, Informative)
Second, the Congressional bill status system [loc.gov] says that today's action so far is "Introductory remarks on measure" in the House Judiciary Committee. It's not shown as passed by that Committee yet. Nor is it shown as being referred to the House Financial Services Committee at all.
Third, the bill is notable for what it doesn't have. It doesn't, for example, make credit card debts for gambling unenforceable, or prohibit banks from cooperating in money transfers for that purpose. That would actually work, but the banks wouldn't like it.
Wheel of Fortune (Score:3, Insightful)
Sweet! Would that Include MMORPGs? (Score:3, Insightful)
For the most part I doubt it'll affect online poker players all that much. Most of them think that it's illegal now.
Japan solved this a long time ago. (Score:3, Informative)
Basically a form of gambling in Japan, where outright gambling is illegal. How do they skirt it?
One company allows you to buy balls. You give them money, they give you balls. Then you take the balls over to the pachinko parlor, where you can use the balls to play. When you win, you receive more balls back. They don't allow you to buy/sell the balls there. No money changes hands. When you're done, you go back to the ball-vendor, who "buys" your balls back.
The ball-vendor and the pachinko parlor are two completely seperate businesses, legally. That way, you're not *technically* gambling. Because the transactions are abstracted, it gets around the anti-gambling laws.
I could see something similar happening with online gambling. Get an account with some "chip" vendor, where you buy online "chips", which are strictly defined as being worthless (EULA type stuff). Then go to a (legally seperate) gambling site which just *happens* to allow you to use those chips, but doesn't directly allow you to buy-in or cash-out, so no money is actually changing hands. When you're done, you cash-out your account with the chip-vendor.