A new law in the U.S. state of North Carolina may outlaw and shut down the only significant form of gambling currently going on within their borders. A new law, House Bill 80, was passed by the state legislature last week and is awaiting the signature of Governor Beverly Perdue, who is expected to sign the bill into law within the next week.

This isn’t the first time that gambling fans in the Tar Heel state have been targeted by lawmakers. Dating as far back as 1791, most forms of gambling have been illegal. In 2006, the state passed laws that banned video poker. That same year, Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which allows the feds to go after financial institutions involved in transactions related to “unlawful” online gambling, whatever that means.

Last year, North Carolina’s legislature passed a law banning online gambling. The law targeted online slot games, or “server-based electronic game promotions,” as it is worded in the law. That shut down the online slot business at Internet cafes, but the gamblers found a way around the law.

As a way of complying with the letter of the law while still allowing customers to spend their money as they please, Internet sweepstakes cafes were established. These establishments and the games they provide are legal because they have predetermined sweepstakes systems for the awarding of prizes, rather than it being done in an online pool. In addition, the sweepstakes machines don’t pay out to the players, since that is banned by a different state law. Instead, players get their winnings from a teller in the café.

If House Bill 80 becomes state law, North Carolina residents will lose yet another form of gambling and the Internet sweepstakes cafes will have to shut down. The law would take effect on January 1, 2011, so the cafes would have to be closed by then.

As the Great Recession continues and states look for ways to close budget shortfalls, many are turning toward their inner Libertarian. A more free market means a greater flow of money through the state. Taxing it provides more revenue for the states. Therefore, many states have learned (finally) that more freedom is good for the economy. For that reason, a handful of states are considering gambling expansion.

Other states aren’t interested and are instead trying to clamp down on the gambling that already exists. One such example is the state of North Carolina, the most liberal state in the south. Back in 2006, the state legislature banned video poker gambling machines. They exempted two models of sweepstakes machines, though, and those have been in operation ever since.

Now the state’s General Assembly wants to ban those sweepstakes machines as well. Democrats Melanie Goodwin and Martha Alexander have proposed House Bill 80, which would entirely ban video gambling in the Tar Heel State.

Why would they want to ban the sweepstakes machines? For your own good, of course! Like most liberal politicians, they feel they need to protect people from themselves. Some of the reasons they give for the proposed ban are that the games have low odds of winning (yet they still allow a state lottery), they prey upon the poor (yet they still allow a lottery), and that they lead to an increase in armed robbery, with people trying to steal from the machines. At the risk of being repetitive, let me just say “yet, they still allow a state lottery!”

Lotteries have incredibly low odds of winning, are played more by the poor than by the middle and upper classes, and are often the targets of robbery. However, the great state of North Carolina is more than happy to run the lottery and make money off of it. Maybe instead of banning the sweepstakes machines, they should just call them the North Carolina Sweepstakes and take most of the money while promising it will be used for education.