The Economist: Attempts to ban online gaming are doomed to fail.

http://www.economist.com/node/16539402?story_id=16539402

by yan • 16 years ago

10 29 16 years ago

Alex633• 16 years ago

Interesting opinion. I wish I could believe that on-line gambling would be legalized in the US, but when you see what has happened with seat-belt and helmet laws (neither of which has any contributory effect to the harm of others), you have to believe that there is an accepted viewpoint within the US body politic that the state should act to protect individuals from the consequences of their own actions (current interest in forced mortgage adjustments is another example). Couple that with a powerful industry lobby, and I don't have much hope of any change in the legal status of on-line gaming in the near future.

shasta2• 16 years ago

> neither of which has any contributory effect to the harm of others

Unless you count the insurance company or taxpayer that has to support the trauma victim

mseebach2• 16 years ago

The insurance company can demand that you use helmets and seatbelt, and try to recoup their expenses from you if you don't. I'm not saying that's a perfect solution, but rationalizing limitations on freedom in terms of avoiding a public expense is a very slippery slope towards totalitarianism.

In particular, privacy comes to mind. Respecting privacy denies law enforcement access to tools that might aid in the quick investigating of crimes. Why should your need for privacy be allowed to harm the taxpayer that has to support expensive investigations?

Alex633• 16 years ago

I don't count insurance companies. An insurance company makes a voluntary decision to be an indirect participant in a risk-taking activity. They can enforce helmet/seat-belt use as part of their policy if they wish, and deny coverage where appropriate.

The taxpayer question is more complicated, since most people would probably agree that we can't allow an accident victim to bleed to death at the side of the road because they chose not to use their seat-belt. I'm fairly confident, however, that a solution could be devised without recourse to state interference in personal decisions.

gte910h6• 16 years ago

I don't know, from what I've heard (from people who play online), the new banking regulations make it significantly harder to pay poker sites money to play.

dminor2• 16 years ago

Only by credit/debit card. The regulations exclude checks, so most sites have an 'echeck' option.

gte910h6• 16 years ago

I believe there were quite recent new regulations which stop all bank payments from US banks...my bank sent me a letter (although I'd never paid one of the sites) about this, at which point I asked the player.

Am I mistaken about what happened?

adamilardi2• 16 years ago

With the government bleeding red it would be a good way to raise some tax revenue. I listened to a hearing with Annie Duke in front of congress. They all agreed the current laws didn't make sense. Somebody has to take charge and get them changed. The basic idea was now the states can decide if gambling is legal but online gambling is a federal issue essentially overriding the states. Unless they can find a way to block all gambling traffic from state x.

anigbrowl2• 16 years ago

I've never understood why there are so many legal restrictions on gambling in the US. Where I come from (Ireland/UK) there are lots of betting shops - mostly catering to sports betting, but you can walk in and ask for odds on anything, such as the outcome of a forthcoming election or whatever. Casinos are no big deal (though they cater mainly to the better-off) and most pubs or other social spots have a slot machine or two.

Of course, some people are compulsive gamblers and experience problems as a result. On the other hand my local 7-11 (24 hour convenience store) attracts gambling addicts too, one guy shows up there once a month and hangs out all night playing a quick lottery and smoking two packs of cigarettes. For a while I thought prohibition policy existed because the state wants a monopoly on lottery revenue, but state lotteries seem to be just as profitable in Europe as they are here despite the much lower payouts. The rates of gambling addiction don't seem much different.

I have virtually no interest in the pursuit other than buying a lottery ticket on a whim maybe once a year, but it's similar enough to video gaming that I can see how people get hooked on it - probably something akin to a dopamine deficiency. Prohibition seems pointless and wasteful; better to deal with reality and divert a percentage of the revenue to mitigation services.

gte910h6• 16 years ago

European lotteries actually tend to have much higher percentages of money paid, but much lower payouts. They're "less of a bad deal" from an odds perspective than American lotteries.

adamilardi2• 16 years ago

I think it goes back to our protestant religious roots. The church does not like gambling(for obvious reasons).

hugh3• 16 years ago

Headline would be less confusing if it said "gambling". I thought: "Who the hell is trying to ban online gaming?"

timwiseman• 16 years ago

I agree fully. I find the fact that gambling is referred to as gaming. But, for better or worse, that is a common term for it and it has been since before video games or the internet existed.

[edit: spelling]

hristov• 16 years ago

You can always tell when someone is being paid by some gambling interest or another because they use the word "gaming" instead of "gambling."

anigbrowl2• 16 years ago

In fairness, the article largely refers to the practice as 'gambling'. Congress itself calls it 'gaming' (eg 'Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act') so I don't think we can blame the writer for using the statutory term in a headline.

gte910h6• 16 years ago

I thought people call it gaming because some people try to argue poker and other games of chance which have a skill component aren't gambling.

wake_up_sticky• 16 years ago

Poker is a game of skill which has a chance component.

nrk• 16 years ago

For those of you who wish to support online poker, or would like to get the latest information on how federal and state law affects your playing poker online, http://theppa.org/ is a great resource.

livejake• 16 years ago

What are the odds on failure?

codingthewheel3• 16 years ago

Here's a contrary viewpoint:

Online gaming/gambling right now exists in an almost-perfect state of deregulation. This deregulation allows low-rake, low-vig games to flourish, and is IMO only reason why it's possible for consenting adults to play these games (online poker being the classic example) with positive expectation.

Regulation of online gambling will likely create games with 20%, 30%, and 40% vigs, as this is what a politician means when he says "regulate and tax". Most state lotteries currently extract around a 30-40% vig, meaning only 60-70% of the money going into the system is paid out as winnings. Other state-mandated games extract similarly huge percentages. Nobody complains because the money gets funneled into "education" or "public works", but state-mandated forms of gambling are far and away some of the most pernicious gambling instruments ever foisted on the public.

The endgame: if online gambling is ever widely regulated, the tax burdens and regulatory requirements imposed will be passed along to customers (who are mostly clueless about things like "rake" and "vig" anyway) and this will create a world in which the only available forms of real-money gaming on the net will be ones in which adults stare drooling at the screen, pressing pretty colored buttons in the futile hope that they can somehow "beat" a game which is now mathematically unbeatable.

I support the call for regulation. But anybody who thinks politicians like Barney Frank are going to protect low-rake, low-vig online gambling of any sort are likely going to be disappointed. Preserving a low rake isn't even on the menu.

fexl• 16 years ago

Also, the author of that article only considers two options:

1. Banning the activity.

2. Controlling the activity.

I prefer the third option.

The Economist: Attempts to ban online gaming are doomed to fail.

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