Reasons Why Online Gambling Should Be Banned

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I’m here today to tell you that online gambling is downright evil. It’s the plague of society and I’m sad to see that people are actually considering making it legal to play real money casino games from the comfort of home. At the very least, you should have to drive somewhere if you wish to participate in this foul activity.

I don’t understand how exactly all this world wide nonsense works, but I know we need to start blocking them intertubes and watching what our citizens view. This is especially the case with online gambling. It’s a dirty business on the same level as brothels and crack dens.

In Support of Legalized Sports Betting: It is already a thriving industry. The betting industry has blossomed regardless of its legality. Illegal sports betting is a multi-billion-dollar industry (some estimates are as high as $150 billion); anyone who wants to place a bet can do so easily online or through local office pools and offshore books. Top 10 Reasons Why Gambling is Bad. Article by lipika bhattacharya, April 21, 2014. Gaming when illegal is called gambling. This is the most crude and layman definition of the vice which involves wagering of money or something of material value. Even though gambling is legal, it should not be because of its harmful economic, governmental, and social effects. There are many detrimental economic effects of gambling, but there are two major.

1. Because online gambling is the devil

It’s a moral issue. Gambling is evil and we all know that gambling is pretty much the same thing as worshipping Satan. And we also know that the US government was created to not only protect life, liberty and property, but to also legislate morality according to some religions but not others.

It doesn’t matter if you or your religion has no problem with online gambling; the government knows better than you the difference between right and wrong. Look at all the good things our government has done for us in the past. And you actually think you can determine right from wrong by yourself?

Even the billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is morally opposed to online gambling. This guy has made literally billions of dollars serving casino games to gambling degenerates around the world and even HE knows how evil online gambling is.

2. Prohibition is highly effective

Anyone who knows a little history knows that prohibition works every time. The prohibition of online gambling is sure to work. People will not find ways to gamble, rogue companies will not set up shop overseas and we will not have to worry about some sort of black market opening up for online gambling. This has never happened in the past.

Also, look at what prohibition did for drugs and alcohol. Remember Al Capone? Well, I don’t see him around anymore. And look at how many people we have in prison today thanks to drug prohibition. Looks like we’re catching all the bad guys if you ask me.

3. We have to protect the kids

Underage gambling has become a huge problem in countries that have legalized and regulated online gambling. Look at the UK. Did you see all those riots over there a couple of summers back? My guess is it was all the kids going crazy and needing their gambling fix.

Online banking, online credit card applications, online shopping, online horse race betting and online pornography are all legally available in the US, but online gambling is a whole other story. Kids are going to flock to it and there is no way gambling sites can verify identities, ask for driver’s licenses, require banking information, enable parents to block their kids or anything else of that nature.

4. Everyone is going to become a gambling addicted psycho

Do you really want to live in a society where the only thing someone needs to do to gamble is turn on their computer? No, of course not. We need to at least make these people drive 30 miles to the casino, get free drinks all night and then drive home again. The computer just makes it too easy for addicts to get their fix.

Just look at what happened in the UK after they legalized online gambling in 2006. That country’s economy is in the shitter. I keep hearing about how bankers have been making bad “bets” that got them and all their neighbors into financial trouble lately. Online gambling has nearly ruined the UK. It is impossible for online casinos to allow self-exclusion programs or monitor customer accounts for signs of problem gambling.

5. We have plenty of extra money to spend on gambling enforcement

The United States has an unlimited supply of money that it pulls out of thin air. This means we have plenty of money to spend on keeping these gambling crooks off our streets. We can either take FBI agents away from murder cases and have them investigate gambling or we can hire a bunch of new agents to keep track of online gambling in the US.

Both options are fine with me. As long as we keep these psychos locked up for a long time, I’m happy. The last thing we need is a bunch of online gamblers running loose.

6. We do not need the tax benefit of online gambling

Did you even read #5? We have plenty of money in the US. We do not need any more tax revenue. It has been estimated that if taxed, online gambling could bring in up to $42 billion for the US government over the next 10 years. But don’t let those big numbers fool you ; the US has plenty of money to pay for all of its obligations. This is just overkill.

Plus, it is estimated that more than 30,000 new jobs would be created if online gambling was legalized in the United States. Can you imagine what it would be like to have another 30,000 gambling fiends running around, working and having money to spend on whatever they want? It would be chaos.

Online Gaming Should Be Banned Artinya

7. We need to give other countries a chance

Other countries aren’t very smart. We need to give them a chance. Hundreds of billions of dollars in online poker and gambling income flows to other countries right now. If we were to open competition here in the United States, our superior online casinos would take all that profit. Then what would those other people do? Sell bananas on the side of the road?

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Besides, we don’t really need that kind of money here in the United States. We have everything we need right here. And if you ever run out of something, our government will take care of it for you. There’s a reason we have subprime mortgages, welfare, social security and some kind of fancy new universal healthcare plan.

8. Online gambling exploits stupid people

In 2009, Chad Hills from Focus on the Family said that online gambling exploits the weaknesses of others. He also worried that online gambling would make it too easy for gamblers to develop an addiction and go into bankruptcy. He didn’t have any research on hand and he didn’t cite any sources for this information, but I believe him. He’s from a cuddly sounding group that focuses on the family, so he can’t be wrong.

The fact is, most people are lucky just to get their shoes on the right feet. They will just log on, deposit all their money and go bankrupt. “Click your mouse, lose your house” as the old saying goes. With all the illegal online poker and gambling going on in the USA already, look at how many people have lost their houses. I remember reading a while back that home foreclosures were at all-time highs across the nation. Why? Gambling.

9. Online gambling funds terrorism

Online gambling is a great way to launder money and fund terrorism. If Osama Bin Laden’s nephew (or whoever is in charge now) needs to send a couple million over to his associate in Yemen, all he needs to do is log onto PokerStars, purposely lose money to his buddy in Yemen, avoid PokerStars’ collusion detection systems and bam, his friend now has a couple million ready to blow shit up.

If we legalized and regulated online gambling, it would be impossible for the banking industry or poker sites to know their customers, notice suspicious activity or report large deposits and withdrawals. None of that stuff happens in other industries that involve large sums of money, and it definitely doesn’t happen in live casinos.

10. We need more laws on the books

Only 40,000 new state laws were introduced to the American justice system at the beginning of 2012. Why do you think we are enacting so many new laws at such a fast rate? It’s because we are short on laws. I don’t know who was asleep at the wheel lately, but it’s clear we are playing catch-up here.

If states are that low on laws, just imagine how bad it looks at the federal level. We need to pass more laws and restrict citizens even more. Most people do not know how to act in an intelligent, self-serving manner. We have to tell them how to act and keep them in line. That’s how it’s been since the beginning of civilization and that’s how it always will be.

Update:

It’s come to my attention that New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware now have legal online gambling and poker sites. I’m sure any day now we’ll hear about the gambling addict zombie apocalypse that everyone has been predicting for so many years now. Surely, those doomsayers couldn’t possibly have been wrong.

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Sports betting has never been more visible in our society than it is today.

Major sports media outlets like ESPN and CBS have sections on their websites dedicated to coverage of gambling and handicapping. Al Michaels seems to allude to the point spread or over/under in almost any game he broadcasts, and recently-retired announcer Brent Musburger now heads up a sports betting information network based out of Vegas. And the Supreme Court is currently in the middle of hearing a case from the state of New Jersey, which could lead to sports betting becoming legal across the United States soon.

Here’s the thing: It should have been legal a long time ago. With all forms of online gambling continuing to explode in popularity, it makes no sense that sports betting in particular is singled out as if it is an especially immoral activity.

Here are 7 reasons why it’s silly that sports betting isn’t legal.

1. Everybody Does it Already

And I’m not even talking about March Madness brackets, NFL survivor pools, fantasy leagues, and Super Bowl squares, all of which are forms of sports betting as well.

According to a UMass Lowell-Washington post poll that was released in September 2017, approximately 20% of sports fans have placed a bet on a game. Meanwhile, the American Gaming Association claims that approximately $4.2 billion was wagered on Super Bowl XLIX between the Seahawks and Patriots, and that 97% of those wagers were placed illegally.

Listen, I understand the argument that just because everybody does something doesn’t mean it should be legal. If that were the case, we could all pirate movies and software to our heart’s content, or drive as fast as we want down the highway.

While downloading creative works without paying for them is stealing, and driving 100 miles per hour on the freeway puts everyone in danger, sports betting doesn’t hurt anybody (as long as it’s done responsibly and recreationally, at least). If governments are concerned about protecting gamblers from themselves, why do they allow casinos (where the house has an insurmountable mathematical edge on games like craps, roulette, blackjack, and slots) while prohibiting sports betting (where a player’s skill at least gives them a chance to win)?

If everyone’s already doing it and everyone wants to continue doing it, governments might as well legalize it and make it a safer past-time for everybody involved.

2. It’s Already Legal in Certain States

New Jersey’s ongoing attempt to have the Supreme Court repeal PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) highlights the absurdity that sports betting is legal in Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon, but prohibited everywhere else in the country.

Ironically, PASPA was first sponsored twenty-five years ago by a New Jersey senator (Bill Bradley), who was looking to stop the spread of sports betting across the country. The four states that currently offer sports betting (in some form or another, though Nevada is the only state that permits single-game sports wagering) were grandfathered into the act because of their past laws allowing it.

A lot of things have changed since PASPA was passed. Almost all states currently have lotteries, gambling in general is a lot more accepted in our culture, and the internet has enabled all of us to gamble without borders, making the Wire Act of 1961 (prohibiting gambling across state lines) obsolete as well.

The biggest issue with PASPA, however, is that it appears to be unconstitutional. According to lawyer Daniel Wallach, at least five Supreme Court justices have indicated they agree that PASPA, “Violates the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle, which forbids the federal government from commanding the states to implement federal laws or policies that would interfere with state sovereignty.”

Boiled down, it’s not fair that some states can offer legalized sports betting while others can’t.

3. Sports Betting is a Game of Skill, Similar to DFS

Earlier this decade, when daily fantasy sports were first introduced into the mainstream, organizers had managed to find a loophole in anti-gambling laws. Since DFS was termed to be a “game of skill,” it wasn’t subjected to the same restrictions that sports betting faced under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

I can agree that DFS is a game of skill (in which the knowledge and expertise of a player gives them a better chance of winning, similar to poker), but that doesn’t mean it’s not gambling. And if DFS is allowed because it is a game of skill, then sports betting should be as well.

Sports betting is not the same as pulling the arm on a slot machine or buying a lottery scratch card. When you bet on sports, there are things that you can do to improve your chances of winning. Breaking down each team’s statistics and looking at recent performance to assess their probability of winning the next game is a skill. So is understanding odds, and so is knowing how to read the sports betting market in order to get the best possible number on your wager.

There’s still a lot of luck that goes into winning or losing a sports bet, but you can say the same thing about DFS, where an injury to a key player or a flukey interception can win or lose you your contest. If DFS is permitted in most states because it is a game of skill, sports betting should be treated no differently.

4. Betting is a Big Reason People Watch Sports

Sports are the toy department of life. They’re a vice, a diversion, a way for us to escape our jobs, our stresses, and our problems for a few hours. Otherwise, investing all of this time and emotion into supporting guys we don’t know scoring more points than other guys that we don’t know doesn’t really make that much sense.

Betting on games actually makes more people watch more sports. According to the American Gaming Association, people who bet on NFL games watch 19 more games per season than people who don’t bet. And not only is watching sports a healthy past-time in my opinion, it also boosts the ratings of the TV providers, which boosts advertising revenue, which boosts the economy.

Okay, so maybe I’m getting a little bit carried away here on this point. But if we’re going to invest time and emotion into watching sports, why not get everything out of it that we can? If our favorite teams or players aren’t playing tonight, let us have some other reason to watch the games. If point spreads and over/unders didn’t exist, I can’t see many people staying tuned in for a Patriots/Browns blowout in the fourth quarter.

5. Game Fixing Isn’t Going to Happen

The biggest reason that professional and college leagues oppose sports betting (publicly, at least, which is a point I’ll get into next) is the concern about game fixing.

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Seriously? Maybe in 1970, when the average salary of a baseball player was around $30,000 per year. But now that even the most marginal of professional athletes is making close to 7 figures, I don’t see many taking a phone call from Fat Tony and agreeing to throw a game.

College is a different scenario in that respect, since the athletes don’t get paid (though I’d still sign up for a full ride scholarship), but that’s all the more reason to legalize sports betting. Having regulation in place brings sports betting out of the shadows and into the sunlight, providing a transparency that would make it easier for authorities to identify and investigate suspicious betting patterns.

You don’t hear much about match fixing in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, jurisdictions where sports betting is legalized, regulated, and monitored closely. Meanwhile, over the past fifteen years in the United States, we’ve seen Toledo university football players admit to point shaving, and former NBA referee Tim Donaghy plead guilty to allegations that he manipulated the point spread outcomes of games through his calls.

6. Leagues Want Legalized Sports Betting

The National Football League can pretend all it wants that it’s against gambling. We all know what the injury report is for, and why the NFL monitors teams’ adherence to it so closely. Let’s just say it’s not so that Tom Brady’s aunt knows if her nephew has a boo-boo.

I do believe there was a time when other sports leagues were genuine in their anti-sports betting stance, but that time is now over. Leading the charge is the NBA, with former commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver both recently going on record with their pro-betting regulation views.

“Let’s go all the way and have betting on sports. It’s okay. It’s going to be properly regulated… that gives a way for states to make more money, for leagues to be compensated for their intellectual property and for the federal government to take (away) illegally bet money and put it through the federal coffers,” Stern said in a public statement in 2015.

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Silver went one step further by writing a column for the New York Times, concluding it by saying, “I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”

The NHL granted an expansion team in 2017-18 to Las Vegas, where it has held its annual end-of-season awards show for years. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders will be moving to Vegas as early as 2019. Major League Baseball maintains that they’re anti-gambling, yet have partnered with DFS sites in the past.

Let’s drop the charade. Sports leagues know it’s in their best interest to have regulated and legalized betting on their games. Their only hesitation is that they haven’t yet figured out the best way to capitalize financially on it themselves.

7. Regulation Would Generate Lots of Tax Dollars

Nevada was one of the states hit hardest by the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, when many people suddenly found their home worth significantly less than the amount they still owed on their mortgage. But residents of the state might have been much worse off had the Nevada government not been benefiting from sports betting-related income for decades.

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Even though Nevada charges its casinos just 6.75% tax on gross gaming win (the total profit after paying customers’ winnings), gambling continues to line the pockets of the Silver State. According to a Nevada Resort Association estimate, gaming revenue collected by the tourism and hospitality industries accounted for about 46% of the state’s general fund in 2010.

Other states have already turned to lotteries and casinos as a way to raise money for education, public safety, transportation, and other needs of their residents. But by keeping sports betting illegal, they’re missing out on a massive cash cow.

According to Forbes contributor Darren Heitner, the legalization of sports betting across the United States could generate more than $6 billion annually in tax revenues by the year 2023. The states would need to sell an awful lot of scratch tickets to come up with that sort of revenue.