"algorithm <algorithm, programming> A detailed sequence of actions to perform to accomplish some task. Named after an Iranian mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi.

Technically, an algorithm must reach a result after a finite number of steps, thus ruling out brute force search methods for certain problems, though some might claim that brute force search was also a valid (generic) algorithm. The term is also used loosely for any sequence of actions (which may or may not terminate).

Paul E. Black's Dictionary of Algorithms, Data Structures, and Problems (http://www.nist.gov/dads/)."

Random number generators in online casinos are produced by algorithms. Actually, in internet casinos there are algorithms everywhere. Algorithms decide who is getting what bonus, they help find fraud, and they run the games. Mathematicians are typically connected to algorithms.

Chad Hanson is a fourth-year mathematics student and vice chairman of L.O.G.I.C. (Objectivist philosophy club) at University California Los Angeles (UCLA). On April 20th the Daily Bruin, UCLA's newspaper, published an article by Hanson about internet gambling and congress (http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=36786).

Hanson is against banning online gambling, and he has a great analogy of what banning internet gambling is really like. "Imagine that you go to the grocery store and pick up a delicious chocolate cake. A government officer tells you that eating cake is bad for you and will make you fat. You tell him that you get regular exercise and that eating the cake won't affect your health, and that he has no business telling you what you can or can't eat, but this falls on deaf ears because there's a law that bans bad eating habits.

Ridiculous, right? This is exactly what's happening with legal bans on gambling, such as bans on online gambling proposed by Congressmen Bob Goodlatte and Jim Leach. I'm a mathematics student, so I'm the first person to tell you that gambling usually is not a profitable endeavor. But I'm also the first person to recognize your prerogative to decide what is or isn't a good way to spend your money."

I agree with Hanson, it isn't the problem of the US government to decide how and what you can spend your money on. Hanson wrote this article as an argument against an article written by Jennifer Mishory (staff reporter) and published on April 11th (http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?ID=36641). Mishory reports about the new anti-internet gambling laws being introduced to congress. While she's just reporting the news I get the idea she's for the bill with her introductory sentence: "Renewed congressional attempts to ban online gambling may curtail a pastime that has been increasing among college students in recent years." Perhaps she thinks that curtailing this pastime would be a bad thing, but for some reason I doubt it.

Hanson is enraged by this legislation. He feels that the government thinks its citizens are stupid. "Laws such as the ones discussed in the article "Congress bills attempt to ban online gambling" (April 11) are exactly the opposite; they suppose you're too stupid to know when you should or shouldn't gamble online. All people have the right to choose how to spend their own money." He goes on to add "All proponents of bans on gambling adhere to one basic principle: that you are too weak to control yourself, so the government has to control you. We must stand vehemently against all forms of government baby-sitting. We are rational adults who can make decisions about gambling for ourselves." Here's the thing Hanson is forgetting, the US government does think that its citizens are stupid, this is why the US has the Electrorial College system (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/02/electoral.college/). The US government doesn't even allow us to directly vote for the president, instead we vote for an elector, who will in turn elect the president. As such I don't see why he's so surprised or enraged at this latest attempt for the government to control the decisions of its citizens.

Hanson wants online gambling to remain legal. As I was an internet casino pit boss in a past life, I think I know why. It was always the math university students which kicked our asses. There's even rumored to be a gambling club at Harvard (I don't think its official) which is made out of math students and has been reported to been kicked out of casinos in Las Vegas. Math students kick ass at gambling. They don't just understand the algorithms behind the games; they are the ones writing them. Of course they make money gambling online. This guys probably making bank and doesn't want his bank machine to stop spewing money at him. As such he's taking out all of the stops in his quest for logic. "Supporters of laws limiting gambling might claim that gambling tempts people to throw away their rent money; so do big-screen TVs, and yet no one would request laws limiting Best Buy's right to sell 57-inch plasma screens. They might claim gambling leads to an increase in crime; so do large banks, since without them there is no vault to rob. But banning banks in order to reduce crime is unthinkable; the answer is to punish criminals, not prevent private individuals from possessing property."

Hanson's right to say that spending should be left up to the individual. He's also right when he gets annoyed by the moral high ground aspect of the bill. "They might claim that we must protect gambling addicts from themselves. But the only way for obsessive gamblers like these to learn anything is by letting them suffer the consequences of their actions; coming home from Vegas to an empty bank account is a powerful learning tool. But ultimately, no matter how little they learn, they harm only themselves; it's obscene to limit the liberties of all men because some don't know what to do with them."

What Hanson doesn't get is this has nothing to do with morality. Very little in politics really has to do with morality. It has to do with money, specifically US money leaving the US and going into someone else's pockets. Internet gambling is off-shore. Lotteries and land based casinos are not. Internet gambling is taking some of the profit from land based casinos and a lot of the profit from lotteries. No amount of drama (and his last statement was seriously dramatic "The one thing we cannot afford to gamble is the freedom to manage our own lives.") will change the simple truth that this is about money. Until the US can figure out how to accurately tax online casinos while ensuring that the internet casinos will not be set up as mafia fronts for cleaning money online gambling will remain in limbo.

There is some good news for Hanson, the legislation isn't very likely to pass. His cash cow isn't going anywhere soon.

Posted on: April 24, 2006

Add This Gambling Article To:
Del.icio.us	Digg	Google	Spurl
Furl	Simpy	Y! MyWeb

Back to April 2006's archive
Back to latest Articles