Online Gambling Lobby Releases Stupid Ad Campaign
Posted on: September 15th, 2009 7:03 am | By: Jeremy SchruteA major online gambling lobby has launched an aggressive advertising campaign pushing for the legalization and regulation of online gambling in the United States. The campaign is in support of bills introduced by Representative Barney Frank and Senator Robert Menendez that would repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which has been called unconstitutional yet has been upheld in the courts. Of course, the courts have a history of upholding unconstitutional laws (such as eminent domain).
The series of ads has been released by online gambling advocacy group the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, as reported by CasinoGamblingWeb.com. The ads will propose two major reasons for legalizing online gambling. The first, according to spokesman Jeffrey Sandman, is that the government needs to “start collecting taxes on the billions in revenue currently lost to unlicensed, offshore gambling operators.” He says that the extra tax money can be used to pay for healthcare reform and “other worthy programs.” The second reason given is that, according to the lobby, gambling online in an unregulated industry is much more dangerous than if the government was in charge.
I don’t know which advertising firm worked with the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative on this, but if they think they can persuade the American people to legalize online gambling with those two arguments, then they spend too much time reading The Huffington Post.
First of all, using the funds from online gambling to pay for Obamacare is kind of like me opening a lemonade stand to pay my mortgage. Even if it was able to make a significant dent, “the government needs more tax money” isn’t exactly a winning argument right now. Haven’t they been paying attention to the tea parties and healthcare protests? If not those, surely they’ve seen Obama’s approval rating plummet the more he talks about spending and expanding government programs. As for the other argument, does anyone actually think that there is an industry out there that is run better by having the government involved? The idea that government regulation of online gambling will end corruption is laughable. Creating another bureaucracy isn’t exactly high on the wish list of the average American citizen.
Instead, a smart campaign for online gambling would focus on the fact that the government has no right to tell the people how they can and can’t spend their money online, unless of course they spend it on child pornography. As it is, I think the ad campaign could do more harm than good. If UIGEA is repealed, it won’t be because the American people are eager to feed more money to the government beast.
Tags: Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Jeffrey Sandman, Obamacare, Robert Menendez, Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, UIGEA, Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
September 18th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Online poker could be a good first step. Instead of trying to legalize the entire online gaming industry in one gulp, politicians might be more receptive to a “pilot program.”
It has been well-documented that poker is not a random game of chance. There is no house edge. The random distribution of card to players and the community cards do not determine the winner. The presence of the bluff negates random chance.
The best example I’ve seen of this was on a WSOP episode the other night. One guy is dealt 84 offsuit and raises preflop. Another person has QQ and only calls. A third person (a professional poker player) has KK and he also only calls.
The flop comes A23. The guy with 84 offsuit bets out. QQ thinks about it, then folds. KK thinks about it, then also folds.
The guy with 84 won the pot with the third worst hand possible in that situation: A2348. (Only 46 and 47 could have been any worse.)
BOTTOM LINE: Was it risky to play 84 that way? Sure. But there’s a difference between “risk” and “gambling.” Every activity in life includes a certain amount of risk — from taking a swig of milk, to starting a business.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:40 am
[...] The U.S. Senate Finance Committee is considering an amendment that would legalize online gambling in hopes of funding a reformed U.S health care system. Senator Ron Wyden proposed the amendment which would dedicate the income from government regulated online gambling to subsidizing health care costs. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers estimation, the regulation of online gambling could generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 billion per year. [...]