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posted by chromas on Thursday January 17 2019, @10:01AM   Printer-friendly

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 § 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.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @12:40AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @12:40AM (#788088)

    Yes. Such as the Nazis. As it turns out, the group can be quite wrong. As is the case with Christians, Muslims, mommy-law enthusiasts, and other adherents / sycophants of those advocating the infringement of informed, personal or consensual choice. When the group is wrong, someone ought to (at a minimum) point that out. Likely do more than that.

    I do respect the liberties of the individual above those of the group. Were that it were so everywhere and everywho; but it isn't. Yet we can still shine light on the matter, which is what we are doing.

    Yes, you do win the Godwin award! Congrats! Whether the group is wrong or not isn't the issue. The issue is that the group can enforce its will on you, should it elect to do so, whether that is right or wrong. And sure, that's exactly what the Nazis did. That they were wrong is irrelevant to that they did in fact do it, and continued to do it until stopped by a power with greater force to achieve its will. What do you make of the rights of liberty for those dead in the gas chambers, God rest their souls? That their morality was completely wrong did not keep them from enforcing it on all those in their domain. So yep, group morality triumphs again over individual morality... both in what the Nazis did and ultimately in their defeat.

    Let's try to remember that the superstitious myth-followers outnumber the carfeful[sic] rule examiners by a ratio of at least 10:1

    ...yes, well, let's also try to remember that no matter how many children believe in the tooth fairy, there still isn't one just because someone imagined there might be, and told them a story about it. Likewise, adults and [insert whatever entity here.] And deceiving people isn't often a positive thing to do.

    [Citation needed]. Deceipt may indeed be ethically justifiable for any number of reasons. (Why do people convince kids about the tooth fairy, BTW? Are they all just plain EEEEvil?) But that aside, it's significant enough for this purpose to realize you are seriously outnumbered and have provided no more proof that your beliefs are any more true than the majority.

    And on this occasion we won't discuss whether those people may in fact be right about the myths they believe in

    Good. It's pretty much a waste of time to point out that there's exactly as much evidence for a God or gods as there is for the tooth fairy. Oops. Well, it was my time to spend. 😊

    Yes, except that they have no obligation to prove to you whether it is true or not. They do not require your consent for them to bind you to their principles, literally or figuratively. Better find yourself a group that can counter them and give you your space to be at liberty. Witness any number of places still in the world today where disagreement results in death. And should you ever succeed to as seriously outnumber the [insert name of faith]'s faithful, you will have the same privilege whether or not you choose to exercise it. You can provide your visions of liberty for all. Until you are then defeated in your season.

    or that there may be individuals in that group who believe just as you do that it is all myth... but there is nevertheless good reason for buying into it.

    Okay, we won't talk about the blatant hypocrisy either. So next:

    No, you can talk about it all you want. Just because it exists does not invalidate that it exists. But it's no more relevant if the hangman putting the noose around the heretic's neck agrees or disagrees with the heretic if the hanging is still carried out. There certainly are "heretics" among the "faithful" who choose to act "faithfully" for any given faith.

    Except that one cannot be a willing slave.

    Absolutely wrong. Slavery is a state of being controlled, rather than controlling. Not a matter of willing or unwilling. However, liberty is something you have, that you can certainly choose to compromise to any degree — that is its nature, after all. You can do it in small ways, like work at a job you hate, you can do it in large ways, like become a soldier, oath-bound to obey orders even unto death, and you can do it completely, by agreeing that your life now belongs to another, hook, line and sinker, to do as they will (and frankly, joining the military really isn't too far off that mark.) Your reasons, given that you are well informed, are sufficient in any case. A complete transfer of your liberties to the whims and caprices of others is slavery, regardless of if it was done willingly or not. Yet there remains a difference: what is mine to give, I can (or should be able to) give. What is taken without my consent is sufficient cause for violence. But that difference is not the state of slavery. Far from it. The issue is consent. One can certainly consent to a course of action that contains all manner of unpleasantness out of your control (or the opposite.) Again, the military is a fine example of that.

    In all cases, it is my lawn you must stay off of, unless I say "come ahead" and/or "here, it's your lawn now because [reasons.]"

    I disagree with what being a slave is. A conscript is a slave. A freely enlisted soldier is not. Despite both of them placing themselves under others control unto death if necessary. The question is whether the cessation of rights was done willingly. But beside the point.
    Yes, you are free to have your lawn and keep everyone off it or give it away. Right up to the moment when the group surrounds you makes a collective decision (or assents collectively) that your lawn is necessary. Then all the liberties you established for yourself (or think you possessed by some divine right) will be found to be nonexistent as you are evicted by processes of eminent domain. Or lynched. The outcome will be the same. Liberty does not exist in a vacuum but is always found in relationship to a larger structure. Or more properly, your liberty will always be circumscribed by the powers which are larger than you. I can walk all over the face of this planet.... right until the atmosphere is burned away by solar expansion, nuclear war, or people with more arms than I burn the oxygen out of "my" "free" air. Then my liberty is at an end by the forces which were larger than I can counter. So I'm pretty glad I live in a place that lets me walk around some until the tidal wave or earthquake or natural death takes my liberty.

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  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday January 18 2019, @01:25AM (1 child)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Friday January 18 2019, @01:25AM (#788103) Journal

    Okay, I'll leave it there. Last word on this is yours. Thanks.

    --
    No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @06:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @06:34PM (#788348)

      Well, I'll take that last word then to say thank you as well. I don't disagree with you at all that the liberty of the individual is of extreme importance. Just that it takes a group to make that happen. (See a couple of posts below). So thanks for the stimulated thinking and I hope your vision is realized and we get to a point where your chart is in fact the law of the land.