Is Regulation for Online Gambling Imminent?

[count zero]

Blogguy, if you were Tarzan, would you rule unilaterally? Or would you invite the apes into the decision-making process?

[blogguy]

You'll have to be more specific CZ. If the apes had a democracy, and elected Tarzan...then he's got a constituency to worry about. If he just kind of rose to prominence because of his superior intelligence, I hope as a benevolent dictator he'd make poker and sports betting legal, lol.

Who are the apes and who's Tarzan in my post? Do the apes have soccer mom's? Are people from other jungles trying to scam the apes? Not sure what you're driving at so I'll ask for guidance...

blg

[Juice]

That was a sharp post Blog Guy. As for what I would say, I said it in my, Is regulation what you really want thread.

Wont happen. And if it did, no one is going to subject themselves to the process it would take to bet with these places. Consult the thread.

In this country of over regulation, regulation is a pipe dream. Pure greed by all 50 states assures us we will never see it nationwide. Only statewide and you will only be able to gamble online in that state.

Stevo wine incident was a case in point I used to illustrate all back in the spring.

[count zero]

blogguy -- just pointing out that building a consensus of chimps is not likely to be productive, no matter how committed you are toward consensus. Also, despite what Juice said, your post was not sharp. Juice's posts are word salad, let's face facts.

I can't imagine that anyone reading your preposterous comparison between online casino games and outright fraud will buy it. The only similarity is that both are ways that simple or uncritical people lose money. The essence of fraud is preventing the victim from knowing the facts relevant to making an informed decision. But virtually everyone who gambles recreationally knows on a rational level that they will eventually lose all their money, and people gamble anyway. If the same people knew the eventual outcome of the Nigerian Prince scam with equal certainty, no one would participate. So I don't see how you can compare the two on any nontrivial level.

From this and other posts, it is clear to me that you would rather admire the workings of democracy than investigate its possible failings. Soccer moms believe what the television tells them to believe, and the television tells them to believe in what works for the people who own television, who of course are the same people who own the government. The idea of attempting to educate such people under that kind of scenario is ludicrous. On the other hand, simple ridicule -- which you unfathomably disparage above -- is doable now, extremely cost-effective, highly appropriate to the internet, and historically successful. So I think MW posters are doing what they can and should. Let the soccer moms take responsibility for their own children, and if the government absolutely must get involved in Protecting The Children, then let them start by making hamburgers illegal, because, after all, a mother can never be sure the kids aren't off somewhere getting fat, and that's a real worry for Middle America so that means we have to vote on it.

Bottom line: the issue is not one that is appropriate for the government to decide, so your suggestions are actually pernicious. Your attitude should be that gambling is your right, not something you have to beg and plead for.

[Highwayman]

Gambling has always been an inalienable right of the freeman as evidence of its historic practice absent of Governmental intervention.

Thus, the question "is regulation for online gambling imminent," resides only in the submissive minds imprisoned by its taxing thought.

[robin]

count , that was an amazing post.

i wish i could have said it myself.........

[stevo]

Stevo wine incident was a case in point I used to illustrate all back in the spring.

I dont drink. So you must be referring to me whining about what was coming. I considered it a warning but you can have your opinion.

I was exactly right about what was forthcoming and you said just bet dont sweat. Meanwhile books are running off with peoples cash and they have no recourse. Selling out to each other at the drop of a dime etc. Doesnt sound like a just bet dont sweat scenario to me. Ask the poeple who lost money at WSC if just bet dont sweat was the right way to go.

I agree with nobody but myself because nobody else can possibly have the perspective I do because we are all individuals with our own experience.

You cant have it both ways. Places like MW have to accept advertising to exist yet they are slammed for doing so and called biased towards the books. Yet not many have any clue about how many people are helped. I'm basically tired of the whole arguement and I see regualtion as the only answer to getting an unbiased governing body.


Regualte it and let MGM and Mirage and so on enter the field and competition will come as long as the government doesnt put any restrictions on competition. I'm not saying like others that this or that will occur. Simply stating what I would prefer to what we have now. It also means nothing to anyone who wants to gamble in an unregualted fashion. I'm sure that will still be there even if there is regualtion of some sort on our part.

One thing I Know for sure. Not everybody will be happy with any resolution. There is always somebody bitching about something. I'm more worried about what our next administration does concerning Soth Korea and Iran along with our standing with the rest of the world community. All this fretting about gambling is just an afterthought to me.

I'd rather laugh than bitch soooooo...........LOL

[cash]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: stevo

Stevo wine incident was a case in point I used to illustrate all back in the spring.



I dont drink. So you must be referring to me whining about what was coming. I considered it a warning but you can have your opinion.



I was exactly right about what was forthcoming and you said just bet dont sweat. Meanwhile books are running off with peoples cash and they have no recourse. Books are no longer offering bailouts like before. They are selling out to each other at the drop of a dime or subpeona etc. Doesnt sound like a just bet dont sweat scenario to me. Ask the poeple who lost money at WSC if just bet dont sweat was the right way to go.



I agree with nobody but myself because nobody else can possibly have the perspective I do because we are all individuals with our own experience.



You cant have it both ways. Places like MW have to accept advertising to exist yet they are slammed for doing so and called biased towards the books. Yet not many have any clue about how many people are helped. I'm basically tired of the whole arguement and I see regualtion as the only answer to getting an unbiased governing body.





Regualte it and let MGM and Mirage and so on enter the field and competition will come as long as the government doesnt put any restrictions on competition. I'm not saying like others that this or that will occur. Simply stating what I would prefer to what we have now. It also means nothing to anyone who wants to gamble in an unregualted fashion. I'm sure that will still be there even if there is regualtion of some sort on our part.



One thing I Know for sure. Not everybody will be happy with any resolution. There is always somebody bitching about something. I'm more worried about what our next administration does concerning Soth Korea and Iran along with our standing with the rest of the world community. All this fretting about gambling is just an afterthought to me.



I'd rather laugh than bitch soooooo...........LOL</end quote></div>

good on ya bud

he who laughs, lasts.

[blogguy]

Goodness...

Let's run through some of the points in CZ's post one by one:

"building a consensus of chimps is not likely to be productive, no matter how committed you are toward consensus."

Maybe we can try to build one amongst humans. The western world has chosen democracies as their preferred form of government, and it's humans rather than chimps who made that decision. I don't think chimps spend much time gambling either, so they're obviously not aware of what their "free-chimp" rights are.

"The only similarity is that both are ways that simple or uncritical people lose money."

That's obviously not the only similarity. But, it is a key similarity. To me the most important similarity is the intent of the scammer. Let's say a simple uncritical person inadverdently went to the wrong side of town and got robbed. Is it not a crime because it was a simple uncritical person losing money? The intent to take money from a person out of their element was present in all three instances. We have laws against robbery. We have laws against scamming. Voters who will be determining whether or not gambling will be legalized and regulated will be deciding whether or not uncritical people should be protected from companies (or poker players) trying to take their money. We all know people who are smart enough to gamble. That obviously hasn't carried the day because casino gambling and sports betting are illegal in most of the country. If you want the pro-gambling side of the argurment to get traction in the national debate, you're going to have to make it clear to the decision-makers how uninformed people are going to be protected.

"The essence of fraud is preventing the victim from knowing the facts relevant to making an informed decision."

I don't know of any definition of fraud that says its "essence" is in the prevention of fact gathering. The essence of fraud is stealing by taking advantage of people who lack knowledge. That's true. I don't know of any where the key issue was that the perpetrators were "preventing" anything. No victim says, "you know, it wasn't so bad that he took all of my money, he just kept preventing me from knowing all the facts! That bastard!"

The essence of fraud is stealing. That's why it's illegal.

"virtually everyone who gambles recreationally knows on a rational level that they will eventually lose all their money, and people gamble anyway."

People who bet on sports DON'T think they will eventually lose all of their money. They're sure they're going to win. They're way too sure they're going to win. People who go to Vegas to play poker DON'T think they're going to lose all of their money. They think they're one of the best in their local games, and they want to go to where the big money is. People who bet on blackjack DON'T think they will lose their money. They've got strategies they think will work, and they haven't read all the books about how the math really works. Even many people who bet on roulette have systems they think will work by riding hot numbers or by playing the due theory.

They may on a rational level know the odds are against bettors in general. They're definitely not thinking they're going to lose all of their money.


"From this and other posts, it is clear to me that you would rather admire the workings of democracy than investigate its possible failings."

I admire the goals of democracy. It's current workings are a bit of a crock. Pointing out that a significant percentage of the nation is anti-gambling doesnt' really have anything to do with that.

This site is running editorials suggesting the anti-gambling emotion is based on religious zealotry or the fact that opponents are just idiots. Much of the anti-gambling emotion is based on the knowledge that unsuspecting people are losing their money. The citizens who are on the other side of this debate don't want to see that happen, and they don't want companies to have the ability to market to unsuspecting people in an effort to take their money. This is what you're dealing with.

If you want to win the argument, that's the argument you have to take down if it all comes to a vote. If a newspaper is going to run side-by-side editorials about the issue. One of them is from a guy who posts facts and statistics about problem gamblers and how lives have been destroyed by gambling...and the other is an MW piece that says gambling opponents are religious idiots, which is going to be more persuasive to voters? In a religous country?

ESPN was doing a TV version of that on that Behind the Lines show several weeks back. We have to deduce from a distance that they didn't use much from the long in-person interview from the Major because he didn't say anything compelling enough to be part of what they consider to be the debate. His comments weren't so important EVERYONE HAD TO HEAR THEM BECAUSE THEY HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD (using all caps to represent what ESPN was hoping to hear, not for my own emphasis). If MW wants to be part of the debate, it needs a coherent theme that acknowledges the potential downside before trumping it.

"Soccer moms believe what the television tells them to believe, and the television tells them to believe in what works for the people who own television, who of course are the same people who own the government."

If any women want to post here, they're welcome to respond to that. The nickname "soccer mom" was given to the moms who are so busy running their kids around to activities that they don't have time to watch television. So, that's kind of like saying that people who don't go to movies only believe what movies tell them. I know soccer moms...I'm married to a soccer mom (it was basketball, violin lessons, extracurricular academics, but the same principal). We live in a neighborhood of soccer moms, and we used to attend a weekend school with a bunch of other soccer moms. This last group didn't watch much television, largely had advanced degrees, and came from a country other than the US where academics is strongly encouraged for kids. They were anti-gambling. (lol, I tried to run a Super Bowl pool for the dads one year and literally NONE out of 25 would even enter! my easiest win ever...).

The site needs to lose the impression that gambling opponents are just too stupid to understand anything, whether they're religious people or lazy-asses who sit at home watching TV all day. You're not going to win a debate saying "we're obviously right and everyone else is stupid."

"The idea of attempting to educate such people under that kind of scenario is ludicrous."

Okay...this is important. The other side of the debate is already educated. The fact that they disagree with you doesn't mean they're not educated. Again, we've got the "gamblers are smart and opponents are idiots" thing in place, with the "gamblers rationally know they're going to lose all of their money as a defense." Anybody that's gambled has seen people who weren't educated losing their money because they didn't rationally understand that was going to happen.

Are casinos approaching people with masters degrees in math as customers? Or are they approaching people who don't know any better? Were those kids from MIT in the black book because they tipped well? Go to a casino in Louisiana and talk to the people betting. How many people with masters degrees are going to be there? How many people who don't really understand the math are going to be there. I don't think I sat at a blackjack table with ANYONE who understood the math. The poker tables were probably 30% sharps and 70% fish during the day. At night it was 20% sharps and 80% fish.

The terms "squares" and "fish" wouldn't exist unless the essence of gambling wasn't about taking money from unsuspecting people. The essence of fraud, and the essence of gambling are the same thing. The other side of the debate gets that, and is opposed because of it. You've got to convince them otherwise. The first step toward that is to stop thinking they're idiots.

"Let the soccer moms take responsibility for their own children, and if the government absolutely must get involved in Protecting The Children, then let them start by making hamburgers illegal, because, after all, a mother can never be sure the kids aren't off somewhere getting fat, and that's a real worry for Middle America so that means we have to vote on it."

New York is outlawing trans fats because they're a virtual poison. Just a slow-acting poison. Things are still evolving in this area as we live through it. Serving rat poison to customers is illegal. Serving slow acting poisons may eventually be illegal too. It's not outrageous for a democracy to work toward banning poisons once the evidence is clear. I wish they'd do something about cigarettes lol.

"Bottom line: the issue is not one that is appropriate for the government to decide, so your suggestions are actually pernicious. Your attitude should be that gambling is your right, not something you have to beg and plead for. "

Democracy means "people rule." That means the people decide what is and isn't appropriate for them to rule on. That's what the word means...the people themselves decide what the government does. Different democacies can go in different directions about what's appropriate depending on what their populations think is most important. I'm not familiar with the "right to gamble" in any historical governmental context in any country. And, even if gambling was "your right," it doesn't necessarily follow that companies have a right to market to vulnerable elements in an attempt to take their money. Having a right to gamble is not the same has having a right to lure people into gambling that wouldn't otherwise have been involved.

It's possible for reasonable people to not really care whether or not your personally bet, but to have problems with a goverment endorsing and regulating efforts by companies to lure people into losing their money.

From the other post:
"Gambling has always been an inalienable right of the freeman as evidence of its historic practice absent of Governmental intervention."

That fact that some people practiced it doesn't mean it's an alienable right.Shooting people over a horse was once seen as an inalienable right too.

Note that governments represent the people, and governments try to intervene to prevent organized gambling. This is very strong evidence that the majority of people don't think it's an inalienable right...and they go about banning it as soon as they can within the framework of a majority rules government. That sentence shows what the pro-gambling side is up against. The majority already thinks it's nonsense that "gambling is a right," so governments intervene to prevent it.

This site has mastered preaching to its choir. Virtually nothing in the sermon is going to play to the audience that's opposed to what you want. If you want to convince a critical mass that your side is right, you've got to develop a theme that resonates. If you want to be quoted in the mainstream media or have editorials run in newspapers, you've got to say things in a way that they demand to be heard.

"We have a right and everyone else is stupid" doesn't do that...

[Juice]

I thought was you stevo who went to Cali and had trouble shipping your order back to Arizona about a year and a half ago.

[stevo]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Juice

I thought was you stevo who went to Cali and had trouble shipping your order back to Arizona about a year and a half ago.</end quote></div>
\

LMAO, Oh Juice, you and I have debated a few things and I thought you were talking about another thread. I thought people might think we were having dinner and I drank some wine and threw up on you or something................LOL

You can't ship wine from CA to AZ so I believe you are correct there.

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

[Juice]

Dont Sweat, Just Bet. The reason I said that is because thats what the majority of the people will do what ever it takes, TO MAKE a BET. The warnings were fair, but for the vast majority in the betting world, they will do whatever to get down and will take whatever chance they have too, to do so. They simply do not care.

Therefore right or wrong, thats why I said it. Its simply what they did and are doing.

In just a few weeks though, I would worry and scurry and certainly not bet with anyone who aint on tier one.

I am afraid of what the new year will bring, BIG TIME. Thats the entire industry, not just the offshores.

[count zero]

Very disappointed in your response, blogguy. Just terribly, terribly weak, and I mean on an intellectual level entirely separate from the points you want to make. Your post is essentially a series of informal fallacies, the most egregious of which is the systematic redefinition for your own purposes of words whose meaning the rest of us have long since agreed on. Your entire argument rests upon the outlandish claim that offering online roulette is morally and legally indistinguishable from perpetrating fraud like the Nigerian Prince scam, and that is clearly wrong. Everyone here knows what fraud is and everyone here knows what internet gambling is, and I seriously doubt whether you can find one single person on this site who agrees that they are the same. Being unaware or being "out of your element" is hardly the same as being deceived. Or would you also say that anyone who pays the sticker price for a new car is the victim of fraud?

Alarmingly, you also appear to accept as revealed truth that the overwhelming majority of Americans are huddled in their basements clutching sprigs of garlic and waving their crucifixes, desperately hoping to fend off the horror of gambling. In point of fact, I have yet to see a single poll suggesting that a majority of Americans are opposed to internet gambling. To the contrary, I have seen many polls showing enormous sentiment (in the area of the 80th percentile) in favor of internet gambling. Now I understand that polling results can be precisely controlled simply by the way in which the questions are phrased, and that it would be quite easy for either side to conduct a poll that returned exactly the results they preferred. But for you to acknowledge that would also be to acknowledge a major problem with consensus -- namely that, as I attempted to point out with my Tarzan analogy, people are often uninformed, deceived, and/or motivated entirely by heedless self-interest, i.e., chimps. But, in the spirit of your whole muddled post, either that went over your head or you decided that you had a better chance of appearing to respond cogently if you pretended to misunderstand what I was getting at.

Meaningful consensus cannot be achieved when one group controls both the government and the flow of information. Again, I unwisely tried to point that out in an elliptical way, by saying that soccer moms will just believe what they see on TV. You responded that soccer moms don't have time for TV, and then tried to enlist the support of any females in the audience by implying that I was belittling women. Do you really not see how weak that is, how it depends on your self-serving, laughably-trivial interpretation of what I said, how it doesn't remotely speak to the issue? Really, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Given your sports posts, I cannot believe you are this limited in intellect, so I must conclude that either you are a cynical (albeit ineffective) manipulator with an unfathomable agenda, or just woefully uneducated about the nature of intellectually-responsible discourse. Do yourself a favor and take a philosophy course or something.

[blogguy]

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree...no need for this to devolve any further. You've mis-stated virtually everything I've said in a hyperbolic way, then used insults to try to drive the point home. The site can try that in editorials and see how well it goes over.

Perhaps the Major can consult a PR firm about the best approach for getting gambling legalized and regulated in the US...and then he can see if that firm thinks he should address the concerns of opponents that I've been suggesting. I doubt their research will find that opponents are "huddled in their basements clutching sprigs of garlic and waving their crucifixes, desperately hoping to fend off the horror of gambling," which is something nobody here has stated except for people trying to insult those who are opposed to gambling. That's what I mean about mis-stating things in a hyperbolilc way. Jeez.

The fact that people here agree on definitions has nothing to do with convincing the other side of the debate that those definitions are valid. Pro-gambling people are already in favor of gambling. To have any impact outside of this choir, they've got to convince the other side of those definitions.

I'm not looking for people here to agree with me. I'm explaining what the other side of the debate thinks. There are very smart people who have very good reasons to be opposed to gambling...particularly the efforts of companies to market gambling at the vulnerable. Smart people who I treasure. Smart people with masters degrees and PHD's who don't in any way resemble the caricatures that editorials here or your posts try to paint. I imagine many posters here have friends and loved ones like that too.

We've got another thread active now about a book that was just written which outlined some of the scammy things going on at sportsbooks. That thread referenced a prior book about the scammy things going on in the poker world.

If I understand things correctly (which apparently is a longshot given my intellect), this site was created as an advocate for sports wagerers. If the sportsbetting industry didnt' have scammy elements, would sports wagerers need an advocate?

The public hears about this stuff, and they have legitimate concerns. They're not idiots for doing so. They're not super-duper-fancy words for idiots...they're not idiots in bizarre medieval metaphorical scenes. They're just nice people with concerns.

It would be great to have more people posting their thoughts on the issue instead of just you and I. Everyone's probably afraid to now, lol.

Best of luck everyone...blg

[count zero]

That you believe a PR firm is the ultimate expression of democracy in action says it all, sadly. You are too conflict-averse and other-directed to address this issue effectively. If you personally need to justify your behavior by appealing to a coalition of mouth-breathing, easily-led simpletons who take their marching orders from corrupt politicians, hypocritical radio talk show hosts, and the bible, go ahead and knock yourself out. For myself, I would rather stop gambling than beg a repressive government for permission to do something that people have done in every human culture for ten thousand years. So in my opinion you are in error on three different levels:

1) by agreeing to subject the issue to consensus, you foolishly put something up for grabs that was already your right.

2) once the debate begins, you have no chance of influencing it in any meaningful way, because the dialog will be and has been totally controlled by people who oppose gambling (or, more precisely, people who oppose gambling they don't have a piece of, abetted by a few nutball moralists). They have thousands of marketing geniuses and speechwriters whose sole job is to twist reality ("internet gambling is the crack cocaine of gambling"), they have unlimited funds, they own the airwaves (the Dixie Chicks weren't even allowed to advertise their anti-authoritarian, antiwar film on TV), and they have unfettered daily access to the almost-unbelievably simple minds of the people who will nominally make the decision (have you ever in your life seen a gambler presented in a positive light in a TV drama? Do you think that's an accident? Do you think that after a lifetime's exposure to that sort of thing, that people are capable of rejecting the cartoonish stereotypes that anti-gambling zealots so relentlessly advance?)

3) even if the dialog results in some form of legal internet gambling, it will be the emasculated brand of gambling currently on display in Las Vegas -- sharps not welcome, fools' money gladly accepted, winnings taxed. Essentially, government and its allies (especially its allies in the US gaming industry) get paid off, using the money that formerly came back to us players in the form of bonuses and low juice. I certainly have no wish to perpetuate a scenario where incompetent offshore bookmakers are free to steal from their customers, but I believe in the ability of the marketplace to sort that out, especially compared to the notorious incompetence of boondoggles like regulatory commisions and other government stopgaps that cost millions and never work.

Bottom line, stand up for yourself, for Christ's sake, or at least stop encouraging people to be sheep.

[blogguy]

We're getting dangerously close to a resolution, lol.

If my point is....nobody's going to listen to the pro-gambling side of the debate if the pro-gambling side keeps calling the anti-gambling side idiots...

And your point (grant me the attempt to boil it down and simplify a bit, I know you'll correct any error) is...there's no reason to even debate it in the first place because the anti-gambling side is so pre-conditioned in their direction that it's futile to try...and any legalized/regulated form of gambling would be emasculated anyway...(making everything I say about a debate irrelevant because a debate is futile)

Then...where does Major Wager go from there? What should they be doing to advocate in favor of gamblers. What kinds of editorials should they run. What should Major say when he's interviewed by TV networks about the future of internet gambling?

What future do you envision, and how do we go about getting there?
What does standing up for yourself mean if it's not in the context of changing the laws...and laws are changed within a democracy?

My posts regarded working within a democracy to get what the pro-gambling side wants (working not working for consensus, just enough to put any iniatives over the top). That could very well be futile. We can disagree about whether it's futile because the other side is a bunch of idiots, or well meaning people with legitimate reasons. Where do we go from here? How do you establish gambling is a right that shouldn't have been taken away in the first place in a way that leads to what the industry wants, and how can the pro-gambling side create a universe that isn't emasculated for people who enjoy these activities?

[cerberus]

&lt;&lt; When governments or concerned citizens get involved in these issues, they're not necessarily looking to deny you your right to have fun. They're looking to keep scammers from profiting at the expense of people who don't know any better. &gt;&gt;

Blogguy,

I always enjoy reading your posts, but I think you are clearly way off base here.

First of all, I think it is a humongous stretch to compare some Nigerian email scam to roulette and blackjack. I guess it could be logically argued that many casino games are scams, but then countless other things would also be considered scams. To compare blackjack to some fraudulent Nigerian email scheme would be like going to a casino and placing a bet at a blackjack table where you aren't even given any cards, but they just take your money away.

Governments and concerned citizens are mostly looking out for their own interests Governments and so-called concerned citizens simply want others to act like they do, and to conform to their own set of ideals and beliefs.

How many citizens are opposed to scams like casinos, yet are not opposed to playing lotteries? Lotteries are one of the biggest scams perpetrated by governments on their own people. If governments and concerned citizens were so deeply worried about keeping scammers from profiting at the expense of people who don't know any better, then lotteries should be one of their first targets.

Governments are always saying how betting on sports can put the integrity of the games in question, yet they encourage you to bet on horses. What is the difference? Everybody knows that the biggest issue the government has is that it isn't reaping the financial benefits of all these profits generated by offshore sportsbooks. These profits are leaving the country, and that is what irks them to no end. They don't really give a damn about protecting their citizens, and believing that they do is foolish.

Most of those who oppose betting on sports and casino games are most likely those that don't enjoy playing them, and yes, because they don't enjoy playing them, then they would rather take away the enjoyment that other people derive from playing them.

I don't know if there is any truth to that statement of yours that I outlined at the top. That is what they would want you to believe, but I truly hope you don't really believe that.

[blogguy]

Thanks for your comments cerberus...

I think the similarities outweigh the differences if you compare the Nigerian email scam with internet roulette and internet blackjack...particularly if you start at the point where there marketed from...move through the point of who their marketed to...and finish with the end result.

The internet versions of roulette and blackjack are rigged very much against the player. I don't think there's any debate about that. Many of the early websites were run by the same kind of scammers that run email scams. I don't think there's any debate about that either. This is known in the industry.

If the discussion is about legalizing and regulating "online" gambling, the perception that they're very close to the same thing is something the pro-gambling side of the argument is going to have to discuss with critics or people who are neutral. We can't leave out the marketing element of this. If companies are aggressively pursuing people to get them to play games they can't possibly win over time, the anti-gambling side of the debate can say that it's basically the same thing as the Nigerian email scam.

The title of the topic refers to "online" gaming rather than brick and mortar gaming. I can't argue your points about the hypocrisy of lotteries (which are at least defended by the argument that they're raising money for schools or something), or horse racing, (where at least there is a theoretical chance of winning). To me, those are side issues anyway regarding online gaming.

If we want the US to legalize and regulate online gaming, I think the pro-gambling side will find it beneficial to allay the concerns of people who think it's all a scam. If they can't show show the anti-gambling side that internet blackjack and internet roulette aren't scam games run by scammers to take money away from people who don't realize how much of a scam they are...the anti-gambling side will always be able to point to that in debates and TV commercials for "proposition" whatever that it's all just a scam.

If we're going to discuss brick and mortar poker, and casino gaming, there's less of a scam issue involved...but there are still going to be stories everywhere about people who lost their money. Asking a national government to make something legal is virtually the same thing as asking them to endorse it. That's going to be a steep hurdle to clear unless the pro-gambling side has something better than "people who disagree with us are idiots."

Not saying governments aren't hypocritical...just talking about the nuts and bolts of getting things legalized and regulated given the framework of how that stuff happens...blg

[StarnetGypsy]

Cash ..

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>"he who laughs, lasts"</end quote></div>

great twist on an old standard [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

MGM et al are just itchin to get online, and the only way they can do it is via regulation.

Terry Lanni, CEO MGM/Mirage said awhile back, "I think the issue is very simple: that you should license it, regulate it and tax it"

And he & Nigel Payne also argued that the US stance about kids getting access made no sense because the tech is there now to prevent that.

He also said:

"If (MGM) could offer Internet gambling, it could instantly double its $8 billion a year revenue. If we could add our brand, and the credibility of the publicly-traded United States gaming company, this could be a vast business."

Furthermore, both MGM & Laddies are looking at buying up online gaming companies, and hopefully those Offshore companies operating now will get fair offers for their operations.

"UK's Ladbrokes and USA's MGM Mirage, two of the world's largest gambling groups, have begun exploratory takeover talks with online gambling companies whose stock value plummeted with the passage by US Congress and signing into law of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). "

Regulation is gonna happen ... it's just a matter of greasing the wheels over the next couple years.