Blog
New York Rules DFS a “Game of Skill,” Maintains Ban on Internet Poker
Human beings have been gambling since at least the dawn of recorded history and perhaps one of the most enduring games is poker.
Blog
Soda Tax Won’t Fix Waste and Corruption in Philly
Last week Philadelphia enacted a 1.5 cent per ounce tax on soda to fund the Mayor’s proposed universal pre-kindergarten system and at the same time…
The New American
Are Soda Taxes the Real Thing for Fighting Obesity?
The New American reports on Michelle Minton's study on the failures of soda taxes. The city of Philadelphia is poised to impose a 1.5-cent-per-ounce…
Blog
Proposed Soda Tax a Bad Deal for Philadelphia Residents
This Thursday, Philadelphia’s city council is set to approve a 1.5 cent per ounce tax on soda. The goal of the tax is to raise…
Daily Caller
Soda Taxes Are A Failed Experiment, Claims New Report
The Daily Caller reports on Michelle Minton's analysis of the impacts of soda taxes. Soda taxes are a failed experiment and should be…
Study
Soda Taxes: a Failed Experiment that Needs to End
Heartland Institute
Congressional Hearing Tackles Fantasy Football Regulation
The Heartland Institute discusses with Michelle Minton the benefits of leaving online gambling regulations up to states to decide. Michelle Minton, a consumer policy…
Blog
Time to End the Failed Experiment of “Sin” Taxes
It seems like an economic no-brainer that if you can raise the cost of a good or service, people will buy and consume less of…
TRIB Live
Take hypocrisy out of gambling laws, think tank says
The Tribune-Review discusses online gambling regulations with Michelle Minton. “Gambling, whether on the lottery, at the casino, or betting online on the big…
Blog
Leave DFS Regulation to the States, But Don’t Kneecap Skilled Players
Congress is abuzz with the issue of gambling. Last month, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) inserted language from his failed online gambling ban into the…
The Hill
Anti-gaming lawmakers still waging a losing battle
The Hill highlights Michelle Minton's analysis of online gambling regulations. It's true the Wire Act didn't change in 2011, but its interpretation by the…
The Hill
Anti-gaming lawmakers still waging a losing battle
The Hill references Michelle Minton's study on online gambling regulations. It's true the Wire Act didn't change in 2011, but its interpretation by the…
Blog
Unpopular Online Gambling Ban Sneaked Into Spending Bill
For more than two years a cadre of congressmen have worked, without any luck, to enact a bill that would create a de facto national…
Real Clear Policy
Lawmakers’ Salt Fixation Harms Our Nation’s Health
America has a salt problem — and it's not high blood pressure. The Obama administration plans to set voluntary sodium targets for processed food makers…
Forbes
Leave Daily Fantasy Sports Regulation To The States
Forbes reports on Michelle Minton and Steven Titch's study on online gambling regulations. Leave it to the states. That is the conclusion of…
Study
Game Changer
Rather than enforcing subjective morality or trying to protect people from themselves, modern gambling regulation should treat citizens as adults and preserve the right of states…
Daily Caller
Experts Savage FDA’s Most Recent Claim That Killing 99% Of An Industry Spurs ‘Innovation’
The Daily Caller discusses the FDA regulations on electronic cigarettes with Michelle Minton. Such an industry-wide consolidation would be disastrous for innovation, according…
Blog
FDA’s Attack on E-Cigarette Will Cost Lives
While the public health goals of protecting consumers from possibly harmful vaping products and preventing kids from becoming addicted to nicotine are laudable goals, this…
Daily Caller
Wasserman Schultz Slammed For Opposition To E-Cigarettes
The Daily Caller discusses with CEI's Michelle Minton, the Democratic National Commitee chair's criticism of the e-cigarette industry. “The industry exists because smokers…
Blog
Advocates Attempt to Debunk Idea that Any Alcohol Is Beneficial
For most public health advocates, no amount of alcohol is safe. As they see it, any amount of alcohol increases a drinkers risk for certain…
Daily Caller
Local Lawmakers Left Red Faced After Failure Of E-Cigarette Tax
The Daily Caller discusses regulations on electronic cigarettes with Michelle Minton. Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Michelle Minton was a strong critic of a…
Washington Examiner
Want to save lives? Don’t regulate e-cigarettes
Smoking kills nearly half a million Americans every year. Tobacco-less vaping products, like electronic cigarettes, have helped many people kick their deadly smoking habit. So…
Daily Caller
Cornell Study Finds Raising The Vaping Age Actually Increases Teen Smoking
The Daily Caller discusses the study on how raising the vaping age increases teen smoking with Michelle Minton. “This study provides some evidence…
Daily Caller
Utah’s E-Cigarette Tax ‘Boggles The Mind’ And Could Prevent Smokers Quitting
The Daily Caller discusses the potential unintended consequences of Utah's push to raise the tax on e-cigarettes with Michelle Minton Raising the vaping age…
Blog
Utah’s Disastrous War on Electronic Cigarettes
Despite the fact that tobacco products kill nearly half a million Americans each year, it is vaping products—which help people quit smoking—that have become a…
Washington Examiner
No Fun in Australia
The Washington Examiner features Michelle Minton's research on the regulatory burden in Australia as a warning to the US. Michelle Minton for the…
Blog
Congress Gets Some Common Sense on Nutritional Disclosure
Last week, members of the House approved a bill that giving customers the nutrition information they want while minimizing harm and cost. Now it's up…
Blog
Overregulation Turns Sydney into International “Laughing Stock”
American city officials, take note: Sometimes the remedy to a purported problem is worse than the disease. This is a lesson fans of Sydney’s once…
Inside Sources
Bipartisan Bill Allows Government to Continue Salt Experiment on Kids
In the scientific community, it is a breach of professional ethics to conduct research on people without their informed consent. But not for the federal…
Blog
House Votes This Week on Common Sense Nutritional Disclosure Bill
Many, if not most proposals that make their way through Congress seem to have comically unsuitable names. However, at the end of this week the…
Blog
CDC Alcohol and Pregnancy Scare Tactics Backfire
Are you a woman of childbearing age? Do you binge drink constantly and have unprotected sex on the reg? Well, the CDC wants you to…
Blog
CDC Sodium Reduction Efforts: Helpful or Harmful?
Most people accept as gospel the nutritional limits set by government organizations. So, when the Centers for Disease Control releases a report saying that 89…
Blog
Milk, Saturated Fat, and Why You Shouldn’t Take Nutrition Advice from Jezebel
Growing up lactose intolerant, I was fond of saying that drinking milk post-infanthood was unnatural. Then I found out that humans aren’t the only ones in…
Blog
New Dietary Guidelines: Some Improvements but Also Fatal Flaws
As expected, the nutritional guidelines for 2015-2020 thankfully excised the long-standing warning against cholesterol-laden food in the wake of several decades of research demonstrating that the original…
Blog
Craft Brewers “Selling Out” Is Good For Craft Beer Fans
This week we learned that U.K. craft brewery Camden Town was the latest in a long string of purchases by the international mega-brewery AB-InBev…
Blog
The Good the Bad and the Big: Top 3 Consumer Policy Stories of 2015
2015 was a big year for health and consumer news. Unfortunately, many of the biggest stories were viral in the true sense of the word:…
Blog
Holiday Liquor Laws: Where to Buy Your Christmas Cup of Cheer
Nobody wants to drive an hour over the border just to get booze, especially on Christmas Day. However, 27 states in the union still have…
Blog
Congressional Committee Favors State-Based Legalization of Online Gambling
Wednesday’s hearing was not good for those hoping to make a case for a national online gambling prohibition. While the House Oversight Committee hearing was supposed…
Washington Examiner
Congress should reject crony casino-ism
The Washington Examiner reports on CEI's work to oppose the "Restoration of America's Wire Act" (RAWA). Groups like the FreedomWorks, the Competitive…
The Heartland Institute
State Lawmakers Call Foul on Daily Fantasy Football
Heartland Institute discusses with Michelle Minton the impact of regulating and restricting fantasy sports betting. Michelle Minton, a consumer policy fellow at the…
Blog
Deck Stacked at House Oversight Committee Hearing on Internet Gambling
Tomorrow the House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee will hold a hearing titled, “Casino in Every Smartphone – Law Enforcement Implications,” to discuss…
The Blaze
Cronyism to Take Center Stage as Jason Chaffetz Sells out Constitution to Las Vegas Casino Ownder
The Blaze references Michelle Minton on the Wire Act's application to issues other than sports betting, for which it was intended. In 2011,…
Austin American-Statesman
No sports betting should be a crime
If you have watched any football during the NFL season, you probably saw an advertisement for DraftKings or FanDuel. Part of the rapidly expanding industry…
Blog
Repealed 82 Years Ago, the Spirit of Prohibition Lives On
Tomorrow, December 5, many of us will raise a glass in celebration of Repeal Day—the anniversary of the end of that disastrous experiment of alcohol prohibition…
Study
Myths and Facts about the Wire Act
Full Document Available in PDF Myth: The 1961 Federal Wire was intended to ban all online gambling. Fact: At the time of…
Study
Debunking Myths about Internet Gambling
Preventing states from legalizing and regulating online gambling would push American online gamblers back into the black market.
Palm Beach Post
Fantasy sports betting isn’t a federal crime
If you have watched any football during the NFL season, you probably saw an advertisement for DraftKings or FanDuel. Part of the rapidly expanding industry…
Blog
3 Political Food Developments to Be Thankful For
For most of us in the U.S., we don’t have to worry about getting enough food. Quite the opposite actually; holidays like Thanksgiving can be…
Blog
House Commerce Committee Approves “Pizza” Bill to Ease Onerous Calorie Labeling Rule
While most consumers are blissfully unaware, a provision tucked into the Affordable Care Act could cause food vendors a lot of headaches. Starting on December…
Washington Free Beacon
Obamacare Regulations Target Breweries Making Craft Beer
The Washington Free Beacon discusses with Michelle Minton the impact Obamacare Regulations will have on restaurants and breweries. “It doesn’t make sense for…
Blog
Should a Billionaire Decide Where Pennsylvanians Can Gamble?
The casino industry has been good for my home state of Pennsylvania. For whatever ills one might claim goes along with gambling, the gaming industry…
Blog
Daily Fantasy Sports Betting: Gambling or Game of Skill?
That is the big question in New York today after that state’s attorney general issued a cease and desist order to DraftKings and FanDuel—the two…
Real Clear Policy
Obamacare vs. Beer
Michelle Minton, in an article for Real Clear Policy, discusses the implications a provision in the Affordable Care Act may have on the craft brewing…
Blog
Federal Menu Laws Need Some Common Sense
This week, the House Energy and Commerce committee will hold a mark-up hearing on the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act (H.R. 2017), a bipartisan bill intended…
Courier-Post
COMMENTARY: GOP debate’s missing question
The Courier Post published Michelle Minton's article which discusses how the GOP candidates should have approached answering the questions on fantasy football regulations during the…
Blog
The Real Question about Fantasy Sports Gambling the GOP Debate Missed
In this clown-car of a GOP primary, it’s inevitable that the discussion will sometimes veer onto more superficial avenues of questioning. After all, news is entertainment and…
Blog
Glyphosate in Tampons, Oh My!
You may have seen the hilarious headlines about putting Monsanto in your vagina (if not, you’re welcome/I’m sorry). This hyperbole comes on the heels of a…
Blog
ABI MillerCoors Merger Won’t Harm the Craft Beer Movement
The folks at Food & Water Watch are pissed. And I don’t mean “pissed” as in drunk; they are mad as hell about the proposed…
Heartland
Businesses Flow to Illinois to Avoid Wisconsin Beer Laws
Heartland Institute references Michelle Minton in an article discussing Prohibition Era regulations on restaurants and pubs. Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Michelle Minton says…
The Hill
Unable to ban Internet gambling, lawmakers try for moratorium
Blog
What Will a Chaffetz Speakership Mean for Internet Freedom? Part 2
Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz recently threw his hat in the ring in a bid to replace Speaker John Boehner, after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s…
Blog
The Death of RAWA: A Performance for an Audience of One
RAWA (H.R. 707) is dying the slow death of bills that aren’t sexy enough to draw attention away from much sexier issues. With the House…
Blog
On Added Sugars, Canada Gets Right What the U.S. Got Wrong
Last month, I wrote about how the new nutritional labels might end up making Americans fatter and sicker. Particularly dangerous, in my opinion, is the addition…
Blog
Has Plain Packaging Reduced Tobacco Consumption?
In 2012, the Australian government instituted a plan tobacco packing requirement—that is, a generic package that removes all stylistic aspects of packaging: colors, imagery, corporate…
Blog
Fantasy Sports Betting Isn’t a Federal Crime, as No Sports Betting Should Be
If you watched football during the open weekend of the NFL season, you probably saw an advertisement for DraftKings or FanDuel. Part of the rapidly…
Blog
Proposed Food Label Change Could Make Us Fatter and Sicker
There’s a new push to finalize the Food and Drug Administration’s new guidelines for nutritional panels. The changes, which include listing “added sugars” and updating…
Blog
Time to Throw out Michelle Obama’s Lunch Program?
As I wrote in The Hill today, Congress this month will decide whether or not to continue funding Michelle Obama’s favorite Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The goal…
The Hill
Should Congress Trash Michelle Obama’s Lunch Program?
Blog
Drinkers Give More than They Take
Public health advocates love to make the case that “sinners,” those folks who drink, smoke, or eat “unhealthy” foods, cost society money and that gives…
Blog
New York City’s Salt Warning: Useless and Potentially Harmful
You may have heard on the news that New York City is, once again, on the cutting edge of interfering with consumers and businesses. This time…
Blog
Study “Wounds” the Carbohydrate-Insulin Theory of Obesity
Last week a very interesting and, by all accounts, very well-done study made waves among the nutritional science community. For many years, the idea that reducing…
Blog
Back to School Lunch Scares
It’s back to school season, which for many parents means spending money on new clothes, shuttling young people from sports games to ballet, and increasingly,…
Blog
Government Nutritionists Wrong… Again
Add it to the list of things that the government got wrong when it comes to nutrition: skipping breakfast may not make you fat. It…
Blog
Tell Us How You Really Feel about Federalism
In the nation’s capital, many of us are eagerly awaiting tonight’s Republican presidential debate. There’s no question that it will be entertaining, but will we…
Blog
What Happens an Hour After Drinking Locally Sourced, Sustainable, Organic Kale Juice?
Remember, sugar might rot your teeth, but junk science will rot your brain.
Blog
If You Don’t Eat Your Meat, They Can’t Have Their Taxes
If you think the brainless health nannies in the United States are bad, you should read up on the absurd proposals bursting from the cranial…
The Heartlander
Senators Rubio, Graham Propose Online Poker Ban
The Heartlander cites CEI`s Michelle Minton on the proposed ban of online poker and gambling: Michelle Minton, a consumer policy fellow at the Competitive…
Blog
Where Does Sen. Grassley Stand on Online Gambling?
Blog
Happy “No Food is Junk Food” Day!
Blog
Slate Exposes Deceitful Heart of the Anti-GMO Movement
Will Saletan has an exhaustively researched and cogently argued piece at Slate on the dishonesty of the anti-biotechnology activists and the harm they have caused.
Products
Graham Hearing Could Touch On I-Poker Ban Bill
The Card Player cites CEI`s Michelle Minton on internet gambling regulation: While the hearing on July 8 isn’t centered on Internet gambling like…
The Hill
Gloves are off in lobbying war for online gambling
The weather isn’t the only thing heating up in D.C. this summer. The battle over state-based online gambling has reached a fever pitch. Until last…
The Heartlander
Online Poker Ban Gains Support in U.S. Senate
The Heartlander cites CEI`s Michellen Minton on the online poker ban: Hidden Agenda Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Michelle…
The Heartlander
FDA Bans Trans Fats
The Heartlanderquotes CEI`s Michelle Minton on the FDA ban on trans fats: Michelle Minton, a Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
Federal Witch Hunt Successfully Bans Trans Fats
Ding dong the witch is dead; killed by the federal government…well, that’s if the witch was a recluse people hardly ever saw, probably hasn’t hurt…
Fox News
National Doughnut Day: Have a doughnut (or two) for freedom
Friday is national Doughnut Day (or “donut” if you’re a Dunkin’ loyalist). Celebrated the first Friday of June, it might seem like a simple promotion…
Blog
Raise a Glass to Lower Taxes
You might not know it, but about half the cost of your preferred alcoholic beverage is made up of taxes and fees. One man in…
Blog
Not So Fast: Fatally Flawed Research Asserts Alcohol Taxes Save Lives
Last month, researchers at the University of Florida published a study in the American Journal of Public Health that concluded, “Increases in alcohol excise taxes, such…
RealClear Policy
Will Congress Ban Your Poker Game?
Blog
Presidential Candidate, Poker Celebs Oppose Internet Gambling Ban
What do two-time world poker champ Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, presidential-hopeful Rand Paul, and Fraternal Order of Police President Chuck Canterbury have in common? They’ve…
Blog
Could Alcohol Taxes Reduce Fatal Car Crashes?
A new study from the University of Florida asserts that because Illinois instituted an alcohol tax increase in 2009 and the rate of alcohol-related traffic…
Blog
White House Petition Asks President to Veto Online Gambling Ban
Heartland Daily Podcast
Michelle Minton: How Will RAWA Bill Impact Online Gaming/Gambling?
In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Managing Editor of Budget & Tax News Jesse Hathaway speaks with Michelle Minton. Minton is a fellow at the…
Blog
Human Achievement of the Day: The Sharing Economy
It’s the most wonderful time of year! Human Achievement Hour is once again upon us, giving us reason to pause and consider recent innovations that…
Human Events
Federal Gaming Bans Undermine Federalism
Comment
Congressional Testimony – Michelle Minton on the Restoration of America’s Wire Act
Blog
A Bright Future
The following is a guest post by Chelsea German, Researcher and Managing Editor of HumanProgress.org. When Homo erectus first learned to control fire a million years ago, humanity…
Blog
Chaffetz Tells States and Lotteries: If You Don’t Want an Online Gambling Ban, Introduce Your Own
According to a Gambling Compliance story (paywall) posted today, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) participated in a conference call last week with about 20 state and lottery…
Blog
6 Ridiculous Myths about Legal Internet Gambling Busted
Should the United States government ban online poker? One billionaire casino owner thinks so. In the quest to convince Americans that they shouldn't be able…
Blog
Victory for “Caveman” Blogger and Free Speech in North Carolina
Many people associate professional licensing with consumer safety. For example, we wouldn’t want any schlub doing surgery. But where occupational licensing laws may have started…