And here is example number one billion of why governments are stupid, ineffective creatures that do more harm than good. The state of Idaho actually has a law that makes using common sense illegal.

Yes, you read that correctly. Right now it is a misdemeanor for prosecutors or police officers to fail to act on a gambling “crime” that they know is in progress. Sure, we want the law to be enforced, but I have never heard of them being held accountable for not doing so before. This whole issue came up when the police raided a senior center and made arrests because a $20 poker game was being played. The police acted on what common sense says to ignore because failing to do so would be against the law, and they took an oath to uphold that law.

People should never knowingly break the law, but it is necessary for the police and prosecutors to use discretion in the enforcement of those laws. How would our society be if the police ticketed everyone who jaywalked, rode a bicycle on the wrong side of the road, or drove one mile-per-hour over the speed limit? Common sense says to focus on the bigger crimes and when it comes to the smaller ones, use your own judgment to determine whether or not it is worth your time.

Luckily, due in part to arrests like the senior center incident, lawmakers in Idaho have changed their minds. Yesterday, Governor Butch Otter (yes, that’s his name) signed a bill into law that allows law enforcement agencies to use their discretion in such cases. The law will go into effect on July 1. From that time on, the police will not be committing a crime if they decide not to haul grandma into jail for betting $5 on a square in the office Super Bowl pool.

The original law came into existence because once upon a time there was rampant illegal gambling going on in Idaho and the authorities were ignoring it. However, time and again we have seen that increasingly restrictive and specific laws usually end up doing away with common sense. In fact, if we just followed common sense, there wouldn’t be need for very many laws at all. After all, do we need a law saying you can’t steal someone else’s property? Obviously that’s bad!

But I digress. The new law is a victory for anyone who favors common sense over Draconian rule. Sense, of course, isn’t all that common, especially in government, so it’s nice to see it prevail on these rare occasions. Now they just need to consider whether or not it’s common sense to let people gamble with their own money.

A recent study on US gambling habits claims to show that while visits to brick and mortar casinos are declining, there is an increase in online casino business. This is despite the belief that online gambling is illegal in America (wrong: it is only banned in 4 states) and the worry that the passage of the UIGEA in 2006 means the government can prosecute online gamblers and confiscate their winnings (it gives the authority for neither).

A survey by a media study group called Mintel International Group showed that 30% of Americans visited a land-based casino in 2009, which is down from 35% in 2001. Mintel also reports that 12% of Americans visited an online casino in 2009, which they say is an increase from an undisclosed amount. In truth, there is no way to accurately determine how many Americans gamble online, since so many think it is illegal or at least vague (to say that some states’ gambling laws are unclear on the subject is an understatement).

So what does this all mean? Perhaps nothing. You may recall that in 2009 the economy started getting pretty bad, with the bank bailouts and the housing bubble bursting and everything. Job losses, fear of job losses, depleted savings accounts and 401(k)’s led to a decrease in tourism everywhere, and that includes hotspots like Las Vegas.

Many in the online gambling community, including some of our competitors, have looked at this information and concluded that it means online casinos are taking business away from brick and mortar casinos. It means people have decided to gambling online instead of taking a trip to a casino. That’s possible, but it’s impossible to tell conclusively. Maybe if we were certain that the online gambling figure of 12% was a significant increase, that would mean something. However, with no previous number given, maybe the 12% figure is a decrease as well. Also, one year isn’t a big enough sample to conclude that former land-based gamblers are now playing online. In one year, any shift could be because of the economy. Even if more people are gambling online, it could be because it’s cheaper and if/when the economy improves they will go back to taking trips to Vegas and Atlantic City.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say that it’s true that people who once gambled in land-based casinos are now exclusively playing online. Why would that be? It’s probably because of price and convenience. Blockbuster is fighting tooth and nail to keep every possible customer right now amid their massive store closings, while people flock to Netflix and Pay-Per-View. Those services are cheaper and don’t require the customer to leave their house. Remember, Americans are lazy. Similarly, iTunes and internet piracy has led to closings of countless music stores. I even went into Best Buy recently with a list of about 20 CD’s I was looking for and couldn’t find one. They had nothing but bare shelves with one copy of a few current hit albums. It’s a sad day when a music store doesn’t fully stock CD’s anymore. They did, however, have lots of iTunes gift cards.

Whether the trend toward online gambling, if it’s a trend, continues or not, this study does tell us something: At least 12% of the country is gambling online at casinos that are operating in the jurisdiction of other countries. That is a lot of tax revenue that the government is losing. If there’s one thing our power-hungry government hates, it’s missing out on the ability to take someone’s money. Therefore, you can probably expect a federal regulation of online gambling in the near future.

Right now the state of Nevada is trying to balance their budget. In an attempt to meet that goal, they have proposed raising the taxes and fees placed on the gambling industry. Representatives from the state’s casinos, who are already being bled by the government, predictably said no. According to the Associated Press, the casinos’ unwillingness to accept higher taxes could derail “plans to raise enough extra revenue to avoid deep cuts to education and social services.”

This is how it always goes, isn’t it? We want to raise your taxes! No? Fine, we’ll have to lay off teachers then! This form of government blackmail is certainly nothing new, but it’s also dishonest. Governments love taking money and when you resist, they don’t take that lightly. I lived in the great state of Florida for a large portion of my life and I can tell you that every time the city faced opposition to raising taxes, they claimed that if they don’t hike the taxes then they’ll have to lay off teachers, police and fire fighters. The state acted the same way. You hear it from across the country and I would imagine every state uses this form of manipulation whenever they want to raise taxes. But it is dishonest.

If you listen to that argument, you are led to believe that the cities and states only pay for three things: education, police and the fire department. After all, those are the only places they can make cuts if taxes aren’t raised, right? I can think of a few other ways to balance the budget.

Does every road in the state need to be under construction? Do you need pretty grass and flowers in the median that need to be watered daily? And since Nevada brought up social services, are there a few people out there receiving welfare checks that don’t need them? Are there a few government employees with unnecessary jobs? Are there a few government employees making too much money (since those jobs pay considerably more than the private sector)? Can we cut back on some of the wasted “expenses” of government employees? This is just a list off the top of my head. Anyone who sits down and looks at the expenditures of the government can come up with lots of ways to balance the budget without letting teachers go. The point is this:

Don’t believe the lie. Nevada, you should be ashamed for threatening cuts in education if you don’t get more money. Then again, Nevada ranks 47^th in the nation in education, so there’s a good chance a lot of those teachers should be let go, anyway. So let’s add the teachers unions to the list of problems, since they make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers. A bad teacher is an unnecessary expense.

People panic when they hear that the government will have to lay off teachers and police and that’s exactly what the government wants. Worse yet, on occasion they actually go through with the threats, while refusing to make any of the cuts I mentioned above. One thing you need to remember, though, is that anytime the government enacts a new tax or fee, they never get rid of it, even if they say it’s temporary. And if they raise taxes it’s very difficult to get them cut again.

The government works for you and is supposed to serve you, but they waste your money and always ask for more. Balancing the budget means making the amount of your money that they take equal the amount of your money that they spend. Since both types of money are yours, shouldn’t you get a say in how much is taken, what it’s spent on, and where the cuts are made?

Nevada and other states are doing nothing more than using scare tactics to get what they want: your money. The casinos in Nevada are already losing money in this recession. Increasing their taxes and fees would be crippling, but that’s not the government’s concern. The government doesn’t care about the business’s profits as long as they can get their share of the money. That’s why taxes are taken out of gross revenue rather than net. The casinos are right to reject the tax hike and as a result, uninformed idiots have branded them bad guys who don’t care about education. However, it is the state of Nevada, not the casinos, that is threatening the teachers, when they know there are much better ways to make cuts.

This is what governments do, though. They can’t just ask nicely for more money because most people will say no. Instead, they come up with a catastrophe that more money will avert. The planet will be destroyed by “global warming” unless we pass cap and trade legislation (which is essentially the largest tax hike on the middle class in history)! Our entire country will be unemployed unless we pass this “stimulus” bill! We’ll become a third-world country if we don’t bail out the banks and auto manufacturers! Those are all federal examples, but state and local governments do the same exact thing, but on a smaller scale. They invent or exaggerate problems that, according to them, can only be solved by taking or spending more of your money. It is a con, nothing more. Don’t buy into it.

On Thursday, the Indiana House approved a bill that would require deadbeat parents to pay child support before collecting their casino winnings. The bill passed the Senate earlier and now has to go back to the Senate for a few changes to be approved.

Once it is signed into law, anyone who wins an amount of $1200 or more at a casino must first have their name run through a database before they are given their winnings. If they are shown to be at least $2000 behind in child support payments, part or all of their winnings would be withheld and given to the correct party as a child support payment. Of course, that would be after the state takes their cut of the winnings for taxes. $1200 is the minimum amount that requires a tax form to be immediately filed in the state of Indiana.

This bill is a tough one to gauge as far as whether it’s a good idea. On the one hand, who is going to stick up for deadbeat parents who aren’t helping support a child that they had no problem creating? Certainly I won’t. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of the government taking the possessions of private citizens, either. If you win money at a casino, that is your money. What right does the government have to take that money and use it for what they deem appropriate? The answer is none. The government does not have a right to do that.

Representative Trent Van Haaften, who voted for the bill, said that it is just “another way to ensure that if you plant a seed, you tend the garden.” Certainly anyone who creates a child should do their part in helping raise that child. Ideally, both parents raise the child together, but there are circumstances where that doesn’t happen, in which case one of the parents (usually the father) pays child support instead.

So the government is doing this because they care about the children, right? Umm… Sort of. It seems to me that if the children were the primary concern, the government wouldn’t tax the amount until the child support is paid, either, but that’s not the case. Instead, what the government is saying is that if you win money at a casino and are behind in child support payments, you can’t take your cut of the money until the child support is paid. The government, however, will take their cut right away, even if that means less money is paid toward child support. So it seems that providing for children is important, but not important enough for the government to give up its share of the money.

Well, if you’ve been reading Gambling Review for a while then you have likely read countless articles on the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and Barney Frank’s attempt to repeal it with his proposed bill, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act. Now there is a new attempt to legalize and regulate online gambling and it comes in the form of a bill that sets out to simplify the U.S. tax code.

Any American readers don’t need to be reminded of the ridiculous nature of the tax code, which is thicker than a phone book and more confusing than a T.S. Eliot poem. The code, of course, is deliberately that difficult for people to comprehend, because being that complex guarantees that mistakes will be made and if they are, those in power can use those mistakes as a weapon against those who oppose them. Ever wonder why people who accused President Clinton of misconduct found themselves getting audited by the IRS? Nixon did the same. By making the tax code complex, those in power can use it to punish their enemies and help their friends by giving them a break. That’s why tax cheats like Timothy Geithner are in President Obama’s cabinet rather than in jail.

Given how absurd the tax code is, rewriting it is a good idea. Ron Wyden, a Democratic Senator from Oregon, and Judd Gregg, a Republican Senator from New Hampshire, have proposed to do exactly that, by introducing the Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010.

I haven’t read or even seen the bill yet, so I can’t tell you what’s in it. I can only tell you what those two Senators say the bill will do. According to them, it will eliminate many “specialized tax breaks” and “create policies that benefit everyone.” That wording scares me, but let’s continue. They also say the bill will include “fiscally-responsible middle-class tax cuts, business tax breaks to help American companies compete globally and create jobs, and a fairer and simpler tax system for all Americans.”

Okay, all of that sounds good except that I cringe when I hear a politician talk about taxes being fair. They normally do so when calling for a progressive tax system that unfairly places an extra burden on the upper class citizens who are the ones starting companies and creating jobs. Also, America already has a progressive tax system, with most of the tax burden being shouldered by the wealthy.

The one aspect of the bill that is of the most concern to online gamblers, though, is the fact that it calls for the regulation of online gambling, with all operators paying a 2% licensing fee to the government on all deposits. Many of the provisions in the gambling section of the bill are like those in Frank’s bill. The bill calls for “strict federal licensing and regulatory framework” to ensure that the games are safe and fair. A Joint Committee on Taxation analysis determined that the regulation of online gambling called for in the bill would generate almost $42 billion over the next 10 years.

Now that the bill has been proposed, its next step is to be debated in a Senate committee. Even though it would clearly legalize and regulate online gambling, I’m not sure if this bill is a good idea. It calls for some tax cuts but lets some of Bush’s tax cuts expire. It also changes the tax brackets and does other things that could be detrimental to the economy. It’s simply too early to tell, without having read the bill, whether it’s a good thing or bad. Rest assured, Gambling Review will follow this bill closely.

Well, President Obama in a speech five days before the election said that they were “five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Well, he’s right, but not in the way that he intended. I believe that Obama wants to fundamentally transform America by doing away with the private sector, capitalism and basically democracy. He wants to shift a rather centrist nation far to the left. However, what he has done is transformed the nation by shifting it to the right.

As the government has tried to grab as much power as possible and grow as large as possible, there has been rebellion among the American people. Equally as important, though, is how it has affected the Republican Party. The Republican Party as it existed in 2008 was more liberal than the Democratic Party in the days of President John F. Kennedy. As a result of the current administration’s policies, though, Republican voters have learned that now we need conservativism more than ever and that big government, high taxes, and high spending policies can’t be accepted, whether it’s coming from a Democrat or a Progressive Republican, such as George W. Bush, John McCain and Charlie Crist. As a result, McCain and Crist are likely to lose in the primaries for their senate seats.

But what about president? At last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Ron Paul won the straw poll for presidential preference. Paul, who is a Republican with very Libertarian ideology, won 31% of the vote, with Mitt Romney (a centrist) coming in second with 22%. Romney had won the straw poll in each of the last 3 years. Sarah Palin received 7%.

No one knows if Paul will run for the Republican nomination. He did in 2008 and didn’t get nearly as many votes in the primary as Romney or McCain. Times have changed, though, and his anti-spending message resonates now more than ever.

So what does this mean for online gambling? If Paul was elected president, it would be a good thing for the online gambling community in America as well as anyone who wants an expansion of brick and mortar casinos. Paul is co-sponsor of Barney Frank’s bill in the House that would overturn the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

Like the issues of spending and regulation, there has been a public shift in sentiment regarding gambling as well. States like Alabama that have traditionally been against gambling, either online or in casinos, are starting to come around, according to recent polls. As the economy continues to struggle and many states are facing budget deficits, adding revenue from gambling makes sense now more than ever. It would also lead to an increase of jobs, something that is badly needed, since 9.7% of the country is still unemployed according to the White House (and a much larger number according to many economists).

Before anyone gets too excited, I should point out that Ron Paul has always been considered unelectable in a national election. Though times have changed, maybe they haven’t changed enough for a man like Paul to sit in the Oval Office. However, his surge in popularity shows a shift in attitude in America, which is just as important. With Americans demanding less regulation, more freedom for private business, and a balancing of the state and federal checkbooks, online gambling legislation could be a safer bet now than ever.

Who would have guessed that getting a bunch of independent countries to agree on having the exact same laws would be difficult? Oh, I guess anyone with intelligence would. For whatever reason, that either didn’t occur to those who pushed for the establishment of a European Union back in 1993 or they just didn’t care.

In any case, if you’ve been following online gambling news you probably have noticed that there have been a lot of disputes between the European Union (EU) and its member countries about gambling. One of the things the EU is supposed to provide for its member countries is free trade. However, several countries either have a ban on foreign online casinos or give incentives for their citizens to use the casinos in their own country instead. The EU doesn’t like that.

You don’t want to make the EU mad, because when they get mad, they react about as harshly as the United Nations: They tell you that you’re being bad and ask you to stop. If you continue being bad, they’ll say that they’re getting really mad and really want you to stop. If you keep doing it, you can expect an angry letter.

The EU now has a new Internal Markets Commissioner, Michel Barnier, who resolves to end this problem once and for all. How? By drafting a paper that clearly outlines the EU’s position on online gambling, of course. He will then send the paper to each member country to remind them that these are the rules that they must follow. Not only that, but it will call out the countries that are violating the EU laws by pointing out what they’re doing wrong. Ooh, that’s gotta hurt.

So who’s ignoring the EU? A few countries right now. France, Germany and Greece have laws that give an advantage to state-run monopolies over foreign online casinos. Spain is a little more covert with their subversion. Though there is no law that gives an advantage to Spanish casinos, their tax code does. The Spanish government offers a tax break on winnings from gambling at Spanish-run casinos. If you win money from a foreign casino, however, you have to shoulder the full tax burden. For that reason, there is significant incentive for Spanish citizens to gamble using the state-run monopolies. Finland is a little more daring. They placed an outright ban on foreign online casinos, making it only legal to gamble using one of the two Finnish gambling companies.

You may be wondering where the new Internal Markets Commissioner is from. Well, Mr. Barnier happens to be from France, which is one of the countries defying the EU rules on online gambling. Maybe this will get interesting after all. France may get a very special letter from Barnier, which would basically say “I’m really disappointed in you. Oh, yeah, and you’re making me look bad.”

If you like your online casinos with as much sexual innuendo as possible, then you’ll love the folks at JackpotCity.com. JackpotCity Casino has launched a new Facebook program called Friends with Benefits. Facebook members who become friends with the casino have exclusive access to certain tournaments, promotions, bonuses and other goodies.

A representative of JackpotCity Casino loves the innuendo-laced promotion so much he couldn’t hold himself back when discussing it. All bolded words are emphasis added by me. The representative stated that the casino “saw a gap, a real opportunity to prove that players come first at JackpotCity.” When asked if he thinks the Friends With Benefits promotion will increase business, he stated that he hopes “it drives market penetration.”

Folks, I have to be honest. When I first heard the name of this promotion I was all set to include lots of puns and innuendo in this article. However, I don’t really need to now. My job is done for me by this guy speaking on behalf of the casino.

The representative went on to say that you “don’t have to make a deposit to have fun at JackpotCity Casino.” I believe (though it can’t be confirmed) that he then giggled and added, “It really is more entertainment bang for your buck. In fact, we thought about calling the tournaments ‘Bang for Bucks,’ but thought it might be misconstrued.”

Yes, unfortunately for the folks at JackpotCity, any sites that promise bang for bucks tend to get raided by the police. Just ask all of those people who posted the ads on Craigslist.

All kidding aside, JackpotCity’s Friends With Benefits promotion is a good deal, because you don’t need to do anything to take advantage other than become a friend on Facebook. As a reward, you’ll be updated on all promotions and deals and will get exclusives that other members of the casino do not.

JackpotCity may be new to Facebook marketing, but they are not new to social media. The casino has a strong Twitter following (for the uninitiated, that is not more innuendo, though it does sound like it) and it is likely that they will soon offer Friends With Benefits on Twitter as well.

If you want to enjoy the benefits of this friendship, find JackpotCity Casino on Facebook and become a friend. Then visit the online casino and take your reward.

Online gamblers and casino operators, watch out. China is coming after you. On the official website of the Ministry of Public Security, the government stated that they will “concentrate on investigating major and important cases of online gambling, knock out domestic and foreign groups that organize online gambling, and severely punish the criminal elements.”

If you’re involved in gambling in any way that relates to China and that statement doesn’t scare you, then you must not know much about the country. The Chinese government has a way of crushing all opposition and when they say phrases like “severely punish,” they mean it. This is the country that responds to protests by running over the protestors with tanks. It’s the country that controlled a population that wasn’t particularly keen on Communism by starving millions of people to death. Mao may be long gone and China may be seen as much kinder and gentler than in Mao’s day, but that’s only because anything would seem kinder and gentler in comparison.

Traditional gambling was banned in China after the Communist takeover in 1949 because the government didn’t want people to have control over their own money. If you could make and spend your own money, you are less reliant on the government. China, of course, continues to allow a state-run lottery, as is often the case in countries that ban gambling. In the absence of a legal way to gamble within Chinese borders, internet gambling has become more popular. In light of that development, China intends to go after those who gamble online as well as the financial institutions used and the online casinos who operate the games.

A fight for control of the internet is nothing new. When Google brought their popular search engine to the country, it was with the stipulation that the government controlled what information could be accessed. It has long been the policy of China, and all Communist governments for that matter, to control the flow of information, because that is the easiest way to crush an uprising.

When last year’s protests of a disputed election in Iran were publicized thanks to social networking sites like Twitter, China took note. China currently blocks the use of Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and Facebook. After Google accused the Chinese government of hacking into their Gmail service to retrieve information on human rights activists, it is likely that Google has seen the end of its days in China as well.

If you live in China, I doubt you have the ability to read this page. If you are in any way involved with online gambling in China, though, heed their warning. When China says someone will be punished, they mean business.

Gambling law in Alabama may soon change. The state has traditionally been against gambling, but recent events have some people, the residents as well as politicians, reconsidering their position. Electronic bingo machines, which are currently illegal, have sprung up across the state, but so far nothing has been done about it. Governor Robert Riley was frustrated with the fact that the city police and attorney general seemed to look the other way. In response, he formed a Task Force on Illegal Gambling last year.

One of the first actions of the task force was to raid three establishments believed to be housing illegal gambling, which include Country Crossing, VictoryLand and the White Hall Entertainment Center. However, since they did not have a warrant, a judge ordered that the raid be halted. VictoryLand then filed a restraining order. Since then, a warrant has been issued to search the establishments and in response, the businesses have closed indefinitely to avoid being raided.

And that’s where things get tricky. If the businesses are indeed running illegal gambling operations, Riley is well within his rights by going after them, though many in the gambling community see him as an evil anti-gambling activist. The attempted raids and subsequent closings, however, have stirred up controversy in the state and now it seems that the people don’t even agree with the gambling ban anymore.

Once a strong anti-gambling voice, the people of Alabama have seen their state, like the rest of the country, mired in a bad recession. Jobs are scarce and with those businesses shut down, the economy is hurting even more and countless workers are wondering if they still have jobs. As a result, a recent poll by the Christian Coalition shows that 2/3 of the people of Alabama are opposed to Riley’s gambling raids and a poll by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama found that 72% of the people are in favor of regulated gambling in the state and only 25% want gambling outlawed.

In response, Riley’s popularity in the state is falling and state Representative Marcel Black introduced a bill that would allow the voters to decide whether or not to legalize gambling. At this time, shutting down illegal gambling is perfectly constitutional, but doing so could hurt Riley. With thousands of jobs at stake, no one wants to be the guy who made the unemployment situation in Alabama even worse. For that reason, it may be best to let the people vote and see what they decide. In the meantime, do nothing. It may turn Riley’s stomach to turn a blind eye to illegal activity, no matter how harmless, but it may be what’s best for the state, his reputation and that of his party.