Legalize Internet Gaming

Legalize Internet Gambling A Good Play
By Daniel G. Jennings
Legalization of Internet Gambling could be an economic boon for the United States and a new source of tax revenue for the US government.
According to Tech Central Station $200 Million is wagered on the net everyday. Hundreds of jobs have been created and vast fortunes and new corporations built in Internet gaming. Unfortunately none of this industry’s jobs or the jobs it creates are coming to the United States. CBS News reports they are going to Costa Rica which is rapidly becoming the Las Vegas of the Internet. Nor is the United States government is getting any tax revenue from Internet gaming.
Internet gaming revenues and jobs are flowing to Costa Rica and other locations overseas because of an archaic law called the Wire Act which bans the use of phone and telephone lines for betting. The sensible thing would be for Congress to repeal the Wire Act, establish a federal agency to regulate Internet gaming and place a sin tax on it.
Such a tax could be an important stream of revenue for our deficit strapped federal government. If $200 million a day is wagered on the net a ten percent tax on it would bring in $20 million a day, that’s $73 billion a year. A 23 percent tax like the Fair Tax would bring in $46 million a day or $167 billion a year.
Then there are the jobs this business generates, the president of one large Internet gaming firm Betonsports.com told CBS he would move his company to the US in a heart beat if it were legal. This would bring several hundred high paying jobs to some lucky American town not to mention tax revenues and incomes.
Naturally Congress is not taking the sensible course of action. Congressman Jim Leach (R-Iowa) wants tougher laws and more enforcement. In other words he wants to waste our tax dollars, invade our privacy, trample our rights, stifle free enterprise and waste the time and resources of law enforcement in a hopeless quest to force his morality on the rest of us. Instead of looking for terrorists the G-Men would be trying to stop Uncle Fred from placing a bet on the Final Four - not a good use of resources.
Some state legislators in Virginia want to go even farther and ban Internet Poker Tech Central Station reports. Virginia Poker players are even worried that some Internet Poker players might be jailed.
How laws against Internet gaming would be enforced I don’t know. Would we send the Marines to Costa Rica, a peaceful nation with no military to shut down the Internet gaming companies? Would cops be going around staring at everyone’s I-Pod? Would Uncle Sam be using spyware to watch our Internet activity. Would we jail or fine the 70 million Americans gambling on the Internet. Are the courts and jails big enough to handle this.
The answer to these questions is no, any effort to ban Internet gaming would be a boondoggle that would make the war on drugs look like a success. Like Prohibition it would end in failure and be a national embarrassment.
Perhaps it’s time for all the Americans who engage in Internet gaming to let their Congress people know they don’t want Big Brother trying to control their behavior. It’s also time for the rest of us to demand common sense instead of Victorian morality from our so called leaders.