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When I was in university I took two poetry writing courses. The first was a regular undergraduate course and the second was a graduate level course where I had to submit my work and be accepted in order to participate as an undergraduate. During this period I held myself in high intellectual esteem. These days Elmo (Sesame Street) is my intellectual peer, but back in the day when I dreamed of black turtlenecks and poetry slams in badly lit coffee houses I wanted to write for The New Yorker. I place The New Yorker on quite a pedestal. This magazine consistently publishes fantastic short stories, poetry, and intellectual commentary, not to mention the best movie reviews you will ever read. Hence you have to imagine the look on my face when I saw The New Yorker in my internet gambling Google alert. Shock and awe doesn't even describe it. For some reason they put James Surowiecki's commentary on the Financial Page, where I would put it somewhere about Politics, although Financial isn't far off. Politics is all about money, after all. This is an article that everyone should read. You can find it here: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060925ta_talk_surowiecki I was going to dive into the article and critique it, but I can't, I agree with it entirely. He gives a short synopsis of where internet gambling is today in regards to all of the current arrests and bills in Congress. Surowiecki then goes through the history of the US and gambling, calling it a "love-hate relationship". Basically he explains that everything going on today is nonsense and will not stop underage gambling. Instead he agrees with the (now ex) CEO of Betonsports, David Carruthers, who before his arrest in July had written numerous commentaries begging for the US to regulate the internet gambling industry. While there's nothing new in this article, it's still so well written it's worth your time. As Monty Python used to say, "And now for something completely different. " A few days ago I wrote about how H.R. 4411, the anti-internet bill which passed the House of Representatives in July was going to die a sorrowful death in the Senate. My reason for this was that the Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, from Tennessee, attempted to attach the bill to some Defense Department legislation. This was not the first time a Senator has tried to attach an anti-internet gambling bill to something completely unrelated. The name Jon Kyle comes to mind here. Like all of the times previously, this attempt failed. I read the news and danced, danced, danced. On September 5th Frist made a speech on the floor of the Senate with a list of his priorities that he would like addressed by the early end of session this year. Banning internet gambling was on his list. Apparently, Republican Senator John Warner from Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and asked Frist to add an internet gambling ban to a defense authorization bill. To make matters worse, the rumor mill says that Warner had to actually check with Democrat Senator Carl Levin of Michigan before he realized that an online wagering ban would not be relevant to defense legislation. I refuse to believe that Warner thought this bill would stay attached to the defense department bill. They are completely unrelated. No one, not even the most illogical politician, really believes that internet gambling is being used to fund terrorists. Sure enough, the voice of reason piped up and killed the idea in the form of Levin. What scares me is that Warner had to ask Levine. He's not bright enough to realize on his own that the two aren't related? Democrat Representative Shelley Berkley from Nevada sent Warner a letter requesting him to discard any amendment that would ban internet betting. In her letter she writes, "We must not use this important [defense] bill as a convenient vehicle for political pet issues such as a ban on Internet gaming." Not surprisingly, Berkeley was one of the 93 opposing votes for the anti-internet gambling bill in the House last July. While Berkeley and Levin may have succeeded in winning this small battle it doesn't mean that they have won the war. Republicans in the Senate are still trying to add some sort of internet gambling prohibition to the voting roster before the end of Congress this year. If you had asked me a year ago whether anti-internet legislation would ever be passed in Congress, I would have given a resounding no. I never expected H.R. 4411 to go as far as it did. I expected it to putter out like H.R. 4777, which got lost in committee arguments and died. Instead H.R. 4411 passed through, and even though it's not as thorough as H.R.4777 it still has the potential to do some serious damage. By the end of July, after David Carruthers had been arrested and H.R. 4411 had been passed by the House of Representatives I had made a complete turn around and was certain that internet betting would become illegal in the United States. I still couldn't really believe it, it didn't make sense, but it did seem like the US had made up their minds. Then Congress came back from their break, the Senate ignored the American Values Act created by the House of Representatives, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Once I saw the Senate grouping the anti-internet legislation with defense I knew the war was won by us. It's not that Congress doesn't want internet gambling banned. I believe that many of the individual congressmen/women do. However, I also think that they realize this legislation is silly. Why should they ban online gambling casinos, poker rooms, and sports books while allowing for online Keno via "PlayAway", online lotteries, and online horse race betting? There is no logic to it. The only answer is to regulate the industry, and once they learn how to do that PartyPoker will have the largest sign you have ever seen on a billboard near you. Posted on: September 21, 2006
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