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2011 ban on interstate, foreign sports betting extended to online lotteries, poker, casinos
Last November, US Justice Department officials, having reviewed the nation's laws, quietly concluded that, oops, interstate and international internet gambling is actually illegal. For some reason, that view was only made public on Monday. And for now, this hot take is not being enforced across the country.
Published here [PDF], the opinion was written by the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel, and is effectively a screeching U-turn on seven years of policy. In 2011, the office concluded that 18 US Code ยง 1084(a), which makes it illegal to use phones and telecommunications to gamble across state lines and the border, only applied to sports betting.
Well, the office was asked to think that over again, and it's come to another conclusion: online poker and similar internet gambling dens are also verboten, not just sports betting. That means e-casinos and online poker rooms with interstate and foreign players are operating illegally, according to the office's legal eagles.
[...] Gambling industry analyst Chris Grove told Reuters while the change won't affect big betting operations located offshore, online state lotteries and e-casinos in the country, whose annual revenues combined are just under US$500m, would be hit.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday January 17 2019, @09:17PM
Addiction would seem to be the common factor. The two major ways we've approached addiction is as a health problem, or a moral failing. It's a tough question. For our own actions, are we responsible or not? And the answer is very mixed. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no, and sometimes it's somewhere in the middle, with all kinds of extenuating factors.
For instance, decades ago the view on automobile accidents and injuries was to hold the drivers entirely responsible. Blame everything on the drivers. Even if the cause was a mechanical problem, it was still the owner's fault for not maintaining the car better. Manufacturers certainly had motivation to encourage that kind of thinking. But since Ralph Nader, we've acknowledged various other factors, such as the safety of the vehicles (which have improved tremendously, of course, from the days of not even having seatbelts to now in which air bags are standard equipment), the design of the roads. greater awareness of the dangers of drunk driving and the steep decline in such incidents, and other things. The highways are still a bloodbath, still in the top 5 for ways to suffer an untimely death, but matters have improved. On occasion, some get these underhanded ideas to appeal to fear to drum up hysteria about some supposed problem, magnify it greatly, then sell us on their solution. An example of that was the red light camera fad, which I believe is fading away, having brought considerable discredit upon itself for being more interested in revenue than safety.
From all that I read, we've overdone it with the moral failing and personal responsibility angle. Sometimes punishment is seemingly motivated not by what's best for everyone concerned, but from a sense of outrage and vengeance. Even when the problem really is a matter of making bad choices, and therefore is perhaps better handled as a legal matter rather than a health matter, we've gone too far, been too zealous with the punishments.
What looks like the best way of approaching these matters is, keep a cool head, review relevant studies and conduct new ones as seems necessary, and soberly consider the results, then apply the findings to craft the best policy we can, eschewing punishment for the sake of punishment, keeping the prison industrial complex at a safe distance.