Wednesday, June 6, 2012

13 Groups work to ban internet gambling nationwide

It was only a matter of time, as there has not been much press about the Supreme Court ruling about online gambling.

"Referring to the Justice Department’s December interpretation of the law allowing in-state Internet gambling, the groups wrote that the decision 'unleashed actions by a growing number of revenue-hungry state governments to turn the Internet into the largest casino ever, and welcoming into homes a greater social cost than any government can handle. This action is undermining Congress’ clear intent when it passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006 that online gambling should be prohibited.'”


As of last count 9 states have video poker, 9 have Keno (I suspect it's more), Mega Millions in 43, Power ball in 41 and all 50 have Scratch-offs.  I think it's a tough call and using the "think of the children" argument may not be the best in this area.  The lottery funds a lot of community resources and does bring in huge revenue for the state as it hurts less than 10% of it's players.  I think a better way to go is to make the lottery systems in each state allocate funds for treatment and prevention.  We will see how this continues, but asking for states to stop gambling, when it brings in revenue is not going to work.

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