Beware the Dangers of Online Gambling Says Wildly Rich, Totally Uninterested Casino Owner
Writing for Townhall, Brian McNicoll cites Michelle Minton’s work on online gambling.
Sheldon Adelson is concerned about problem gambling. He’s also concerned about underage gambling, international terrorists using gambling operations to move and hide money, jobs being lost to competition from other gambling outfits and, of course, the threat to the public interest posed by additional gambling outlets hitting the market.
These are all familiar concerns, shared by other Americans. But they are odd coming from Adelson because he’s worth about $30 billion as of April, good for eight richest in the country and 16th in the world – and nearly all that money came from gambling.
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RAWA, which would restore the former interpretation of the Wire Act and make online gambling illegal again in all states, would not seem a priority for Congress. But it has the kind of quirky combination of support that sometimes can pull off the improbable. Moderate Lindsey Graham usually carries this legislation in the Senate; leadership on the issue in the House has ranged from social conservatives such as Trent Franks of Arizona to Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who embodies the party’s moderate, pro-business wing.
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The truth is this is a smokescreen. States that already have online gambling have proven methods to prevent minors or people from other states from participating in their games. Casinos may have come up with ways to spot problem gamblers, but so would online gambling companies, who would have electronic records of the use and money spent by their customers.
Besides, as Michelle Minton of the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute points out, about 1 percent of gamblers develop an addiction, and this is consistent no matter what forms of gambling are offered.
Read the full article on Townhall.