You Got To Know When To Prosecute ‘Em
Continuing in the vein that Manwhore started with regards to dumb laws and those charged with enforcing them, we come once again to the War on Gambling and how people have been getting around it.
“People have been setting up payment processors in all sorts of weird locations, including Russia, specifically to process gambling transactions,” says Jim Murphy, a professional sports bettor. “They’re basically just names to get money to the sports book, but instead of sending it to, say, 5Dimes Sportsbook in Costa Rica, you’re sending it to ABC Investment Consultants or ABC Shipping International in Costa Rica.”
Even an ordinary paper check in the mail will do in a pinch, since the Treasury Department has decided it would be too onerous to demand that banks scrutinize every handwritten payee’s name for gambling connections. “I don’t know of anybody who’s had serious difficulty in actually providing payment to an online operator,” says Joseph Kelly, a professor of business law at SUNY-Buffalo and co-editor of the journal Gaming Law Review.
At the same time, driving online gambling transactions underground increases the potential for fraud and money laundering, two problems Goodlatte and his allies claimed to be concerned about. “It forces people who want to play to find alternative means of funding their accounts rather than just using the most transparent system of all, the U.S. banking system,” says John Pappas, executive director of the pro-legalization Poker Players Alliance. “What we’d like to see is a regulated system that provides consumer protections.”
Passage of the UIGEA, combined with the BetOnSports and Neteller arrests, scared publicly traded gambling companies such as PartyGaming and 888.com out of the U.S. market. But scores of privately held operations, including Bodog, Poker Stars, Full Tilt, and Ultimate Bet, remained. “There still are a number of very reputable sites serving the U.S. market,” says Pappas, and “the people who were playing on the publicly traded sites have simply migrated to these other sites.”
When are politicians going to get it through their thick skulls: Prohibition. Does. Not. Work. Particularly when it’s prohibition against what is perceived as a victimless crime (like paying for sex-although it seems to be OK when Governors and Congresscritters do it) or a harmless vice, like pot or placing your bets. Again, it’s a case of lawmakers trying to make it look like they are actually doing something.
Comments
Politicians put their economic ignorance on public display every day with moronic laws like this. They don’t understand basic supply and demand, the role of prices, or the law of unintended consequences.
This is exactly why we need a separation of state and economy in the same way (and for the same reasons) that we have a separation of church and state.
In the state of Washington it’s a class “C” FELONY to gamble online. The same Washington state politicians that passed this law take thousands of dollars in donations from Indian casino operators. Follow the money.
No vices unless the government gets its cut.
The mob typically runs a more honest racket…
You all Hear about Kennedy? I know this is awful to say, but....Could not have happpened to a bigger scumbag.
I’m toasting his imminent demise later on tonight…
You guys are assholes…
You guys are assholes…
Ted Kennedy should have put in prison for murder 40 years ago, how exactly is that piece of dogshit worth your respect?
So you’re a bitter schmuck about the fact that he didn’t get charged and convicted of the crime you thought he should have been, and now you’re cheering about the fact that he’s going to die from a brain tumor.
I’m not a fan of the guy, but either way, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re an asshole.
A truly pathetic one at that.
And you’re a total dipshit most of the time....
However, I don’t make a habit of calling you one whenever it is deserved…
From the standpoint that Kennedy has a family and friends (people that had nothing to do with his prior sins)and it is these people that are suffering, some compasion is in order.
From the standpoint that Kennedy has a family and friends (people that had nothing to do with his prior sins)and it is these people that are suffering, some compasion is in order.
I concur (and I’m a cold-hearted bitch).
Usually even the biggest scumbag has at least one person that loves them.
From the standpoint that Kennedy has a family and friends (people that had nothing to do with his prior sins)and it is these people that are suffering, some compasion is in order.
No doubt...But as for HIM, Buh-Bye...If you want to put him and his family in your prayers....Say one for Mary Jo as well.
If it hadn’t been for Kennedy’s connections, cash and influence, he would have rotted away in prison for a couple decades. But at least he wasn’t embarrassed by having his mistress show up pregnant - just letting her drown while you go sleep it off is so much easier…
Justice for the rich is different than it is for the rest of us....
Can we blame his policy decisions on having something pressing inside his head?
I feel for his family and friends, but not for him. He should’ve died of a perforated colon in prison a long time ago.
If only Kennedy could of held out for just a few more years.
I thought Kennedy WAS a cancer…
I keed, I keed. BTW the new Guv in NY was also taken to hospital for a migraine.
I am gonna step away form my normal asshoel self, and say that this is a sad thing to see, no one, not even Teddy deserves this shit.
However, he has access to the best medical care in the world and a very large fortune, im quite sure, the cancer will not get him.
with that said.
ted kennedy is a infected cunt hair of a man, he SHOULD be rotting in jail.
instead of living off the aura of his dead brothers.
he has access to the best medical care in the world
Actually, shouldn’t he go to Canada or the UK for treatment? You know, to prove how great socialized medicine is?
However, he has access to the best medical care in the world and a very large fortune, im quite sure, the cancer will not get him
Its a malignant glioma Harley. Gliomas are incurable. Regardless of the size of your checking account. He’s a walking dead man. If he lives more than a year, I ‘ll be very surprised, no way in hell he sees 2 full years from today.
BTW....if a thread is started about Keneedys imminent demise. It has to be entitled “ did you have a brain tumor for breakfast today”....a pop culture reference from the 1989 movie heathers, made sadly so much more relevant by the fact the the actress ( Kim Walker) whose character ( Heather Chandler) uttered those famous words later died from....wait for it...a malignant glioma.
i bet his liver will get him first…
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Tonight's speech by Obama on Iraq...
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I don’t think that’s their main motivation for these actions. I think they believe they are doing “good”, and that they are acting morally. They are wrong of course, for example as you point out with some of the unintended consequences above, but these do-gooder politicians really seem to believe that gambling is a blight on society and somehow we all suffer because some people gamble. They feel that it’s a legitimate use of government power to enforce what they see as an immoral activity and that they are obliged to do it.
People like that will never stand down, it’s part of their puritanical mission in life. That’s what the SCOTUS is supposed to be for, to back these people off us. Too bad the whole system is kind of watered down and busted. It also didn’t help that the past administration was only all too happy to go after the online banking sites like neteller etc. Checks and balances only work when the whole mechanism hasn’t tipped over.