I detect the following issues with regard to internet gaming:
1. Who are the consumers that want internet gaming protected by prohibition (according to the recent decision of the National Gaming Impact Study people)? Has anyone ever asked them that question when they voted to recommend this ban?
2. If the industry set up a "click the mouse bet the house" fund for Senator Kyl, and refunded any real claim by a family that could prove a child stole their parent's credit card and "clicked the mouse and bet the house," what else would Senator Kyl kvetch about? Has anyone ever proposed that to him, or asked him that hypothetical question? The industry would be all too glad to do that.
3. If these parents are that bad at parenting-to allow the kid access to the family credit card to begin with, not to mention the myriad of electronic and other means of blocking any bets by minors-do they deserve to be parents? Perhaps they deserve to "lose the house by a clicked mouse" for being negligent idiots. Do they guard the family medicine cabinet with the same tenacity that they have guarded the family purses and wallets, Senator Kyl? Has anyone ever posed these questions to the good Senator?
4. If internet gaming, according to Senator Kyl, is the "crack cocaine" of gambling, what does he call the odds of winning any state lottery? As I understand, the odds of winning a state lottery are in the 10.7 million to 1 range, vs. odds of 11 to 10 for sports betting. Has Senator Kyl just gone insane or is he being paid to utter such out-and-out lies by Vegas and those very same governmentally-sponsored lotteries and scratch-off games?
5. In an increasingly global electronic market, aren't states' rights the most antiquated notion on the face of the earth? What rights are there, when these boundaries do not exist, period, except in the minds of corrupt politicians?
"Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
The General sat, and the lines on the map
moved from side to side"
-- Pink Floyd, Us and Them.
6. In an increasingly global electronic market, do I, as an American businessman, have the right to compete with my global counterparts and competitors without the meddlesome--if not terminal--interference of my own government?
7. Isn't it ironic, in (supposedly) the "freest" country on the face of the earth, that I actually have to expatriate myself, to experience freedom, and transact commerce with my own patriots and countrymen? Anyone ever pose that questions to Senator Bile?
8. Isn't the foundation for internet gambling and any interstate commerce already laid in Article IV, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, where it says, "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States," and furthermore in Amendment 14, Section 1, Clause 2, where it says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States," meaning as soon as sports betting (or any activity for that matter) is approved in "more than one state" (as it has been in grand-fathered legislation for Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware) it should be legal coast to coast (the same with casino gambling, considering it is legal in both Nevada and New Jersey)?
9. How do federal and state legislators justify the fact that they desire to criminalize their constituents, no less for activities that they themselves have deemed legal and engage in every day? Do they work
for us or do we work for them, and does the word "mandate," as evidenced by the half trillion dollar gaming market nationally, mean anything at all?
10. And finally, it appears as if everyone else on earth can form gaming operations, except the small to mid-sized bookmaker or internet operator. Big business can (in the form of Vegas and riverboat casinos across this country); government can (in the form of state lotteries and other games that include peppy-little promotional TV shows, no less); American Indians can; any religious church bingo or charity group (those groups being against casino gambling when it comes up in most states) can; horse tracks, dog tracks, etc., in other words, everyone except me, the "criminal," the "meek who desires to inherit the earth," the independent computer operator that can not be controlled by government.
Ayn Rand said, "you can not govern an honest man." (There is no need.) So in order to control and govern the honest man, you have to make him a criminal first and never has this been more evident than in the mind-numbing corruption, total incompetence and disgusting spin-doctoring surrounding the
prohibition of internet gambling as espoused by Senator Kyl and his ilk.
It seems to me that in order to protect the consumer, Senator, you would set up a valid set of guidelines and regulate an activity that is already rampant, and can not be controlled in other countries, no matter how hard you unconstitutionally try to limit the "freedoms," "privileges," and "immunities" of the small
American businessman, who simply chooses to run an honest game in a growing worldwide industry.
How do we protect consumers from you, Senator, so their money isn't lost in some $10 million to some state-sponsored theft of a state lottery, instead of a rational, real possibility of actually turning a profit under the 11 to win 10 wagering system?
Every time someone has to purchase a plane ticket to travel to Vegas or Atlantic City to gamble, or cross a state line to do the same, they should sue you, Senator, for the cost of the plane ticket and out-of-town accommodations, under the very clauses of the Constitution I mentioned herein.
And finally, Senator, can you provide me with a single example--one single example--where some kid has stolen his parent's credit card and "clicked the mouse and bet the house?" I'm waiting for your reply, Senator, and you have my email address.
Send it along when you find it. Perhaps the world's glaciers will melt first.