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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Oct 28, 2006

After the Dust Settles

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others. Bertrand Russell

Sooner or later, the whole question of internet gambling will be as moot as the act that prohibited folks from making, transporting, importing, exporting, or selling alcoholic beverages in these United States of America. And the folks who panicked when the pompous Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Rep) from that ultra pristine, unsullied, State of Tennessee performed a quarterback sneak and managed to get everyone and his brother, sister, cousin and extended family and friends and probably even enemies into a tizzy over Internet gambling will be wondering why they fell for this goof-up attempt to stifle freedom.

This, too, shall pass. (No prayer intended.)

At least thatšs how I see it. And to help it along, why donšt we just vote all those nincompoops out of office. After all, practically none of the Senators who voted in favor of the act even read it! (Itšs nice to know how well our representatives look after us, isnšt it?)

Anyway, this is all opinion and mine is emotional, definitely biased, and not intended as legal. I. Nelson Rose, the noted attorney and author of Gambling and the Law, issued his interpretation of the bill within hours after passage. (See www.gamblingandthelaw.com/columns/2006_act.htm.) Itšs a good read for everybody.

What surprises me is that the present casino industry in the U.S. didnšt attempt to block the ban more aggressively. Canšt they see a goose when itšs laying golden eggs in front of them? After all, how many employees does it take to run a mega-resort like MGM-Mirage of Harrahšs? Thousands, right? Now how many does employees do you have to pay (and wešre talking payroll, health insurance, holidays, vacations, the whole gamut) to run an Internet casino? Probably not even one hundred!

What doesnšt surprise me is that some readers are going to accuse me of being too liberal or to anti-Republican and thatšs okay, even though itšs far from the truth. My politics tend to be moderate and my party affiliation exists only because itšs required for primary voting. Išve split many ballots.

Now with that out of the way, letšs get back to Senator Frist and his insistence on setting a moral standard that bans gambling. (Notice Išm focusing on the moral issue and not the fear of money laundering because Išm sure politicians donšt want to wake up that sleeping giant.)

With sincere apologies to the good people, here are some official statistics about Tennessee (www.tbi.state.tn.us/divisions/isd_csu_sac.htm). Mr. Frist lives in a state where there is one murder a day except for a few days off (358 total in 2005). He is elected by a people who experience more than one forcible rape per day (368). (Is there something called unforcible rape?) He resides in a state where gambling crimes amounted to 320 total cases in 2005 but narcotics crimes totaled more than 46,500 in that same period.

So there are a tad more than 5.5 million people living in Tennessee. In 2005, the state experienced nearly 152,000 Type A crimes. Now, unless I am a total math retard, that sounds like a crime committed by every 37th person in the state! Pretty high for a bunch of moral people, donšt you think? I guess thatšs why he spends so much time in D.C. -- to get away from all those immoral people in his home state.

Not that any of this means anything since Mr. Frist is a United States Senator from Tennessee and not a state or local official who can make a difference, other than the pork barrel kind.

Just kidding. All those figures come from warped logic and we all know it.

It will all come out in the wash, I think, or at least in the monetary implications. As soon as Mr. Frist either wins his way into the White House or gets his political allies reelected, or draws attention away from his cohorts who happen to like things that are definitely on the opposite end of a good Christianšs moral scale, or keeps himself distanced from other scandals, someone will figure out (1) that the law is in fact what the title (inadvertently of course) implies: The UNLAWFUL Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 or (2) that Internet gambling dollars can be traced and taxed or (3) that already fat cats can get fatter by designing their way into this lucrative business.

Meanwhile, we still have plenty of land-based casinos to take our money, so letšs lighten up until after the elections, till the legal minds get finished with this bill, until the World Trade Organization gets its two-cents in, until all the serious gamblers finish setting up off-shore bank accounts to handle their recreational dollars, and until a bigger and better political battle cry takes over.