We won’t be among the mourners when and if President Bush signs a bill to ban Internet gambling that passed Congress in the early hours of Sept. 30.
The Web has opened up many marvelous horizons: easy, affordable global communication, fingertip access to a virtually infinite storehouse of knowledge, and the ability to shop for merchandise in the world’s biggest department store.
But there’s also a downside to the Internet, as Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, one of the sponsors of the legislation noted. The problem is particularly acute for young people who tend to be on the Internet frequently. “Never before has it been so easy to lose so much money so quickly at such a young age,” he said.
The ban, attached to a port security bill that Bush is expected to sign today, bans most forms of Internet gambling and makes it illegal for credit card companies and banks to make payments to those who operate online gambling sites. The legislation exempts state-run lotteries and the horse-racing industry.
A red flag about online gambling is that although half its customers live in the United States, the Internet gambling industry is headquartered almost entirely outside the country, where regulation is negligible or non-existent. Many of the betting operations that depend on American dollars are located in the Caribbean or Central America but are British-owned.
Some of the online betting sites in the British Isles have restricted their operations to Europe and accept only credit cards denominated in pounds or euros.
Not surprisingly, their stocks dropped by as much as 26 to 64 percent of their value on the news that the legislation had passed.
Some domestic Internet providers of games of skill, such as online checkers or chess (which offer cash prizes) worry that the ban will put them out of business in the U.S., and it wasn’t immediately clear whether those games would continue to be legal here.
We’ve never been much enamored of nanny government, but then again we’re not keen on expanding the number of places where people can flush their hard-earned cash down the tubes, either. The sad truth – as sponsors of the ban have rightly pointed out – is that Internet gambling can be very addictive.
Too often, the people who can least afford it – the poor and those on fixed incomes – find themselves lured by the siren song of instant riches only to end up deeper in the hole. Congress acted properly, and Bush should sign this bill.
