The Liberty Papers

Congress is, once again, doing the Lord’s work, making sure that you don’t have access to immoral offshore gambling web sites.

US President George W. Bush this week is expected to sign a bill making it harder to place bets on the Internet, a practice which already is illegal in the United States.

Bush was expected to act quickly after Congress approved the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act making it illegal for financial institutions and credit card companies to process payments to settle Internet bets. It also created stiff penalties for online wagers.

Billions of dollars are wagered online each year and the United States is considered the biggest market.

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The bill’s chief Senate sponsor was conservative Republican Jon Kyl, who, like Leach, has said he believed Internet gambling was a moral threat. He has called online betting as the Internet version of crack cocaine.

“Gambling can be highly addictive, especially when its done over an unregulated environment such as the Internet” he said this year,

Even though websites exist that allow players to make informed decisions on where and when they gamble online, such as https://findfaircasinos.com/en, this is not seen as a choice for the consumer to make in the eyes of many lawmakers. You see, you are too weak to make your own choices. Especially in an “unregulated” environment. Perhaps we, the esteemed Congress, might allow you gamble from time to time, but only when we’re watching over you. There may be a way in which you can get around this. A certain type of currency like bitcoin, for example, can be done relatively anonymously on some online casino sites, so no one will know who is actually doing the gambling and you can play the many different games that are available to you, (you can check out the Best Bitcoin Casino games here). Even though there may be some level of knowing who is gambling on what sites, users may decide to gamble this way instead of using a different type of currency so that it is less likely to track back to them.

This, like every other vice law, doesn’t do anything to stop gambling. Especially since the “unregulated internet” moves a lot faster than Congress. Try to shut down one payment method, another will crop up. Just like with every vice law, from gambling to drugs; if people want it, they will find a way to get it. Due to the number of people using these online casino games, it’s almost impossible for the law to prevent users from finding other websites. Of course, people in America could always try and use Spanish slot machines to continue gambling. There will always be online casino games due to their popularity.

When it comes to a vice law, though, this is typical government behavior. They made it illegal. It didn’t stop it. So they’re going to expand their power, in order to try even harder to find the behavior, and punish it more severely. When that doesn’t work, they’ll expand their power again, expanding their reach and control over our lives, because they have to crack down on this “immoral” behavior.

But the true coup de grace? They’re protecting the family and the children…

“It is extraordinary how many American families have been touched by large losses from Internet gambling,” said US Representative Jim Leach, the bill’s main sponsor in the House, in a statement after its passage early Saturday. How many times will the government scapegoat the families and children of this nation as a means of justifying its end and throw things like online gambling under the bus just because they, and they alone, take issue with it? Should people not be able to exercise their free will and access sites like letou operator casino if they so choose?

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Leach cited research which showed that young people who tend to spend hours of leisure time on the Internet, are particularly vulnerable.

A 2005 survey by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 26 percent of male college students gamble in online card games at least once a month, while nearly 10 percent of all college students gambled online at some point last year.

“Never has it been so easy to lose so much money so quickly at such a young age. The casino is in effect brought to the home, office and college dorm.

“Children may play without verification, and betting with a credit card can undercut a players perception of the value of cash, which too easily leads to bankruptcy and crime,” Leach said.

Ahh, it’s for the children… How can you argue with that?

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