Facing a rising tide of both online gambling websites and gamblers, Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) are working hard to revise their Internet gambling legislation, hoping to improve its chance of passing this year. Last session’s efforts fell short when Goodlatte's bill was narrowly defeated in the House after Kyl’s passed the Senate.

Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) has also reintroduced his bill to crimp online betting by prohibiting the use of credit cards or other financial instruments to place wagers. Financial institutions would be exempt from liability, except in cases where they knowingly facilitated Internet gambling, which could result in the monitoring of all financial transactions under the auspices of "fighting" gambling.

These legislators do not fight alone. The Australian federal government has vowed to ban online gambling, and it will expect foreign ISP's to voluntarily block Australian users. The Labor Party opposition to the dominant Conservatives says that prohibition is a poor substitute for a sensible policy that actually addresses “problem gambling.” Furthermore, the legislation is reportedly replete with caveats, much like the horse racing and jai alai exemptions contained in Goodlatte's bill, that seriously undermine any government’s ability to rail against “the evils of gambling” with a straight face.

Other jurisdictions are going in a different direction, though. The United Kingdom has realized the futility in trying to regulate the Internet in this respect and has decided to make online gambling a legitimate industry and use it as a cash cow. Some states in the US, such as Nevada and New Jersey (surprise!), are formulating plans seeking to follow the UK model at least on a test-case basis. Like Britain, they hope that accepting online gambling will avoid the problems inherent in driving it underground and create a new source of revenue.

Without question, gambling, in any form, can be addictive–for a small percentage of the population. For the rest, it is recreational. People know the house will probably win, but they enjoy a pleasant time and some excitement. Fun, in other words. They will not accept the moral legitimacy of government efforts to play the killjoy, and will evade if they can

The Internet is an effective instrument of evasion, so any serious effort to outlaw online gambling will produce continuing escalations. What would be next? Perhaps a requirement that ISPs and banks monitor everyone’s surfing habits and financial transactions to be sure they are not gambling? Or laws requiring surfers, like automobile drivers, to be licensed, with revocation as the penalty for engaging in government-disapproved activity?

Leaving aside all the questions inherent in any effort to change human nature by legislation, such as the great national experiment with Prohibition, the current anti-gambling crusade is particularly troublesome because it is directed at the Internet. It risks setting the bad precedent of crippling a brilliant technology because it cannot be rendered totally risk-free, to everyone, however unbalanced they may be. Since this standard cannot be met, it would justify unending meddling.

No, the UK and the NV and NJ proposals have it right. Bring Internet gambling into the open, make a contribution to your favorite self-help group, and move on.

Rumblings on the Hill indicate that this is where Congress is going, because the rising tide of gambling has caught the legislators’ attention and is causing them to recoil from a destructive course. If so, then last year’s votes will turn out to be the high-water mark for the anti-gambling forces, and all lovers of the creative chaos called the Internet can relax a bit (until the next battle).