Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.
From the beginning of time, societies have sought to prohibit most forms of gambling. There are reasons for this--and they are especially applicable to gambling on the Internet today. Consider the following.
Youth. A recent New York Times article warned that `Internet sports betting entices youthful gamblers into potentially costly losses.' In the same article, Kevin O'Neill, deputy director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, said that `Internet sports gambling appeals to college-age people who don't have immediate access to a neighborhood bookie. . . . It's on the Net and kids think it's credible, which is scary.'
Listen to the testimony of Jeff Pash, the Executive Vice President of the National Football League, before the Senate Judiciary Committee: `Studies . . . indicate that sports betting is a growing problem for high school and college students. . . . As the Internet reaches more and more school children, Internet gambling is certain to promote even more gambling among young people.'
Families. Gambling often has terrible consequences for families and communities. According to the Council on Compulsive Gambling, five percent of all gamblers become addicted. Many of those turn to crime and commit suicide. We all pay for those tragedies.
Harm to Businesses and the Economy. Internet gambling is likely to have a deleterious effect on businesses and the economy. As Ted Koppel noted in a `Nightline' feature on Internet gambling, `[l]ast year, 1,333,000 American consumers filed for bankruptcy, thereby eliminating about $40 billion in personal debt. That's of some relevance to all of us because the $40 billion debt doesn't just disappear. It's redistributed among the rest of us in the form of increased prices on consumer goods. . . .' He continued: `If anything promises to increase the level of personal debt in this country, expanding access to gambling should do it.'
Professor John Kindt testified before the House Small Business Committee that a business with 1,000 workers can anticipate increased personnel costs of $500,000 a year due to job absenteeism and declining productivity simply by having various forms of legalized gambling accessible.
Addiction. Internet gambling enhances the addictive nature of gambling because it is so easy to do: you don't have to travel; you can just log on to your computer. Professor Kindt has described electronic gambling, like the type being offered in the `virtual casinos' on the Internet, as the `hard-core cocaine of gambling.'
As Bernie Horn, the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gaming, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime: `The Internet not only makes highly addictive forms of gambling easily accessible to everyone, it magnifies the potential destructiveness of the addiction. Because of the privacy of an individual and his/her computer terminal, addicts can destroy themselves without anyone ever having the chance to stop them.
Unfair payouts. As Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, `[b]ecause [Internet gambling] is unregulated, consumers don't know who is on the other end of the connection. The odds can be easily manipulated and there is no guarantee that fair payouts will occur.' `Anyone who gambles over the Internet is making a sucker bet,' says William A. Bible, the chair of an Internet gambling subcommittee on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission.
Crime. Further, gambling on the Internet is apt to lead to criminal behavior. Indeed, `Up to 90 percent of pathological gamblers commit crimes to pay off their wagering debts.' A University of Illinois study found that for every dollar that states gain from gambling, they pay out three dollars in social and criminal costs.
Cost. According to an article in the March 1999 ABA Journal, `Online wagering is generating a $600-million-a-year kitty that some analysts say could reach as high as $100 billion a year by 2006.' I want to repeat that: `$100 BILLION a year.' The article continues: `The number of Web sites offering Internet gambling is growing at a similar rate. In just one year, that number more than quadrupled, going from about 60 in late 1997 to now more than 260 according to some estimates.' And a recent HBO in-depth report by Jim Lampley noted that virtual sports books will collect more money from the Super Bowl than all the sports books in Las Vegas combined.