[dalerobk]

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Remember - DC is politics first, then policy.

Even a great argument in opposition to these legislative efforts won't work as well as a good political one.

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Though I am, of course, all for online gambling, I didn't really intend to make any argument. I simply wanted to give some perspective to people who might be interested. But I agree that the whole thing is very much political, as is almost every thing.

I can give some historical perspective to the arguments that have been made in the past. I know the most about lotteries in eighteenth-century France, so I’ll use that as an example. Over the course of the eighteenth century, lotteries expanded throughout France and the government slowly began to assert a monopoly over them to use for their own good. This ultimately resulted in the founding of the Royal Lottery in 1776. During the French Revolution, the revolutionaries often used the Royal Lottery as an example of the state exploiting and manipulating the common, credulous people. In opposition to this, conservatives fought to maintain the lottery by arguing that it was condescending and fundamentally undemocratic to tell people how they could spend their own money. Ultimately the lottery was suppressed only to be brought back a few years later.

Regardless, this seems like the most interesting argument to me—that is, that outlawing gambling is in some way fundamentally opposed to democracy. Who is to say how someone should spend their money? The government of course should ban things that harm its people, but does gambling really apply? What harms American citizens more profoundly than smoking? Should we ban smoking? After all, how many families spend thousands of dollars a year on cigarettes while facing eviction, not to mention the health implications. Of course, the bigger hypocrisy is simply allowing online lotteries and horse racing, while banning other gambling. But I think this democratic, individual choice discourse framed in opposition to an overreaching, condescending government is probably the most effective argument, especially to a Republican audience. From my own esoteric research I can say that it was the most difficult for French revolutionaries to deal with, especially since they stood for democracy and liberty.