Long: Detailed and Researched Position Paper on Poker Ban

[vintagegarb]

Hi, I wrote this for a class recently and thought that some of you might find it interesting. It's fairly long, but may provide some additional insight or sources for material useful in fighting legislation. Here goes:

Gambling is quickly becoming one of America’s favorite pastimes. In the past, gambling has been taboo and viewed very negatively, but over the past ten years various forms of gambling have grown in popularity and are now viewed as mainstream and acceptable. The internet became a new way for people to gamble from the comforts of their home and has significantly contributed to the growth of gambling’s popularity. Various forms of poker, in particular, have seen a considerable growth in popularity because of entertainment companies like ESPN, the Travel Channel, and Fox Sports broadcasting poker tournaments with large prize pools regularly. The demand is growing and will not be stopped by mere domestic government bans. Today, responsibility lies on the shoulders of elected officials to pass legislation that supports the demands of the public and regulates the online gambling industry in order to provide a safer environment for American citizens.
Most critics of internet gambling make no distinction between games of chance and games of skill. There is a reason that the same players make it to the final tables of the world’s highest stakes poker tournaments every year. Poker is a game of skill. In poker, as opposed to other casino games, players are forced to play against each other, representing their own hands in the most profitable way or deciding possible holdings of their opponents based on betting patterns, reads, or various other factors. Advanced thinking in psychology, observation, mathematics, and, most importantly, money management are all crucial skill sets found in profitable poker players. In normal casino games, the house has a mathematical advantage over players at all times, despite their perceived level of skill. This guarantees long run loss over time, but poker players with developed skills have proven that a genuine understanding of the game and their opponents can be profitable over time (Smith). In fact, Michael Walker, a professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, distinguished between games of skill and games of chance as they applied to compulsive gamblers. He notes that there not even any studies of addiction to poker, bridge, or chess despite the fact that there are people that have ruined their lives because of an obsession with all of these games (62). The proportional amount of poker players in Gamblers Anonymous is catastrophically smaller due to the fact that poker is a game of skill and as players get better their earnings rise.
American law has a tradition of not distinguishing between these games of skill and games of chance. Most laws across the country simply file poker between craps and roulette and ban all of them. A few states have stepped up and made the proper distinction, however. California and Montana are two states in which it is possible to play games of skill such as Texas Hold’em, Seven Card Stud, and Omaha, but games of chance, such as roulette, are banned by law (Cabot 23). It is important for those proposing bans to internet gambling in Congress to make these distinctions as well. Republican Senator Bob Goodlatte is currently back a bill that will prohibit gamblers from playing any form of casino game, but will allow lotteries, horse racing, and fantasy sports team wagers. Reasons for these allowances are completely political. Lotteries must be allowed because of the Jack Abramoff affair from the last attempt to ban online legislation in 2000 (Swindell). Abramoff successfully lobbied for the support of lotteries and effectively stopped the ban. In addition, Goodlatte received donations from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association in excess of $10,000 during his 2004 election campaign (Caruso 54). Acting to meet a political agenda on an issue such as internet gambling is absurd. If Bob Goodlatte can make concessions for chance games such as lotteries and horse racing, then he is also capable of distinguishing between games of chance and games of skill, but he apparently has not yet been bribed properly by a lobbyist representing the interests of internet poker players.
The invasion of Americans’ privacy associated with the internet gambling ban proposed by Goodlatte is a cause for even greater concern. Goodlatte’s bill proposes a system of requiring banks and credit card companies to constantly monitor the purchases of customers to ensure that wire transfers are not being sent overseas to online casinos (Bolcerek 18). Some bankers have even expressed concern about the costs of performing such a monstrous feat (Swindell 6). Most bank customers see banks as a place to store their money and receive a nominal amount of interest. Banks do not have the paternal authority of telling customers where they can or can not spend their money. Some banks have already started to decline requests to send money to internet casinos. Clay Champlin expressed his frustration with his bank after his request to deposit money into an online casino was denied. Champlin, however, had no problem buying access to pornographic websites, illegal steroids, or handguns online with the very same bank card. It is simply impossible for banks to check every transaction of every customer, despite legal regulations.
Increasing the difficulty of enforcing a ban of internet gambling is the fact that the United States does not have authority over most of the places where internet casinos are based. Tom Bell points out that the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution protects operators of online casinos outside of America’s domestic boundaries (169). Such bans will merely force internet poker players, which are currently estimated to represent about 23 million Americans, to send their money overseas. A ban of internet poker would simply create 23 million potential outlaws. With internet technology and the ability to send encrypted messages anonymously across the world in a matter of seconds, a ban of internet gambling would be unfeasible to enforce.
Further analysis of the Goodlatte bill shows that it would require internet service providers to disable hyperlinks to online gambling websites (Bolcerek 18). This is, simply put, censorship of the internet in its most basic form. If government officials are allowed to deem online gambling websites inappropriate for Americans there is no end to what the legislature could deem objectionable in the future. Censorship of the internet has been properly criticized in China, and should be equally criticized in America. Americans should not allow elected officials to decide what is and is not legal to view on the internet. Goodlatte’s bill represents a blatant infringement of citizens’ First Amendment rights.
Another popular criticism of internet gambling is the risk players must take when depositing money onto online casinos. Indeed, online casinos are not regulated by the federal or state governments and, if the operator of the casino is dishonest there is no guarantee that players will be paid out fairly (Kyl 158). This was proven by a study conducted by a group of Canadian psychologists that found that 45 out of 117 internet casinos “inflated a player’s win ratio during the free introductory games (Clark).” Clark failed to mention whether any of the sites tested were poker sites. Poker sites have no interest in who wins a particular hand because players are not playing against the house. There would be no motivation for poker sites to change the odds for a player in real money play because they take the same rake, no matter the outcome.
Regardless of whether these psychologists tested their hypothesis on poker sites or not, it is apparent that there are gamblers that are taken advantage of. Senators Kyl and Goodlatte are of the opinion that the best way to protect online gamblers from these foreign casinos is an outright ban of all internet gambling, with the exception of lotteries and horse racing. As previously mentioned, the United States does not have jurisdiction over foreign operated internet casinos; thus, a ban would have no effect on whether or not casinos began to operate in a more honest fashion. As long as players have some avenue of getting their funds into the accounts of online casinos, government regulation will not prevent gamblers from being taken advantage of. There are, in fact, already numerous methods of circumventing banks that currently disallow players to directly deposit funds into online casinos. One of these methods is Netteller, which is, bluntly, a legal money laundering service that allows users to advance money into an account on Netteller, which can then be rerouted to any online casino that they desire for a small fee.
The proper way to address foreign sites taking advantage of American citizens would be to regulate and tax the online gambling industry. If the United States instituted a regulatory board to monitor online casinos and bring them within American borders the positive effects would be dramatic. First, online gamblers depositing funds would be happy to do business with a government stamp of approval showing the legitimacy of the company. Casinos not complying would be viewed as illegitimate and would suffer as a result, thus forcing all serious gambling sites into submission to the regulatory laws of the United States government (Bell 166). Critics of this plan argue that if a ban would not work, then regulations will not work either. However, the same logic applies to the reason nobody plays illegal craps in Las Vegas. A regulated industry demonstrates to players that they will not be illegitimately ripped off.
A further implication of this plan is that, instead of costing taxpayers millions of dollars per year, it has the potential to increase tax revenue by billions of dollars. Internet poker alone has seen demand increase from a $300 million industry in 2003 to over $2 billion in 2005. This rapid growth is expected to continue in the near future. Politicians should find it difficult to deny citizens the right to play poker when there are so many dollars at stake. State governments alone would have millions of dollars that could be directly applied to roads, education systems, and other things of public interest simply by providing the public with a right to play a game that they already demand.
In addition to regulating the online gambling industry, part of the proceeds from internet gambling tax revenues should be used to create an institute for problem gambling. There are already national institutions addressing alcoholism and drug abuse, but nothing promoting education about and prevention of compulsive gambling (Lesieur 166). Such an institution would also be responsible for helping cure compulsive gamblers. This is essential because, as critics of the growth of gambling in recent years suggest, an increase in the number of gamblers will also increase the number of pathological gamblers. This is another reason to possibly disallow gambling on chance games but still allow games of skill, but lawmakers that do not participate in either have a hard time distinguishing between the two. To properly address the issue of online gambling, the forms of legal gambling should be all or none.
Individual rights are at stake. As the bill Senator Goodlatte is proposing is closer to being pushed through Congress, privacy and liberties of every American are closer to being infringed upon. Poker is as American as baseball and apple pie, but for some reason, throwing the word “internet” in front of it makes it a crime. Twenty-three million Americans currently choose to spend some of their time and money playing internet poker, a game of skill. Denying poker players the ability to enjoy their game while promoting games of chance, such as lotteries, is simply wrong and should be stopped. Whatever some may feel about gambling online, gambling with liberty is far riskier (Bolcerek 18).













Works Cited

Bell, Tom W. “The Government Should Not Prohibit Gambling on the Internet.” Testimony before the National Gambling Impact Study Commission 21 May 1998. Opposing Viewpoints: Gambling. Ed. James D, Torr.San Diego: The Gale Group. 164-171.
Bolcerek, Michael R. “A Conservative Case for Internet Poker.” HumanEventsOnline.com 27 March 2006: 18. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Blinn Coll. Lib. 6 June 2006 <http://bart.blinn.edu:2334>.
Cabot, Anthony. “A Game of Skill or Chance?” PokerBiz Magazine Summer 2005. 23. Poker Players Alliance. 25 June 2006 <http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/commentary.html>.
Caruso, Lisa. “High Stakes on Web Gambling.” National Journal 13 May 2006. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Blinn Coll. Lib. 23 June 2006 <http://bart.blinn.edu:2334>.
Champlin, Clay. “Sex, Drugs, Guns – But No Poker.” Chicago Tribune 23 Aug. 2005. Poker Players Alliance. 25 June 2006 <http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/...82305.html>.
Clark, Kim. “Against the Odds.” US News and World Report 23 May 2005. Vol. 138 Iss. 19: 46-53. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Blinn Coll. Lib. 6 June 2006 <http://search.epnet.com>.
Kyl, Jon. “The Government Should Prohibit Gambling on the Internet.” Statement before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information 23 March 1999. Opposing Viewpoints: Gambling. Ed. James D, Torr.San Diego: The Gale Group. 156-163.
Lesieur, Henry R. “Costs and Treatment of Pathological Gambling.” The Annals: Gambling: Socioeconomic Impacts and Public Policy. Ed. James H. Frey. Philadelphia: The American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 556, March 1998. 153-71.
Smith, Tye. “Poker 101: It’s Not Just a Game of Chance.” The Daily Utah Chronicle 1 Sept. 2005. Poker Players Alliance 25 June 2006 <http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/...105-2.html>.
Swindell, Bill. “House Panel OKs Measure to Close Online Betting Window.” Congress Daily 3 March 2006: 6-6. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Blinn Coll. Lib. 6 June 2006 <http://search.epnet.com>.
Walker, Michael. “Compulsive Gambling is Not an Addiction.” Excerpted from “The Medicalisation of Gambling as an ‘Addiction’” 1996. Opposing Viewpoints: Gambling. Ed. James D, Torr.San Diego: The Gale Group. 58-68.

[QuickLearner]

Thank you for posting this. I plan on not only calling/writing my own Senators, but was thinking about ways I could help in neighboring states. May I have your permission to redistribute this?

[vintagegarb]

Yes, I posted it so people could use it in any way they saw fit to help out. Please, redistribute this all you guys want. Hopefully it can help out somehow!

[vintagegarb]

If anyone does end up using this somehow I'd love to hear how you use it and how it goes. Thanks.

[TwoNiner]

Man, it must be A&M when the works cited is half as long as the position paper. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Seriously though, good work for sharing it for people to use.