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When I was very little we lived in Great Falls, Montana. Every summer we would take these long road trips to see beautiful things. I hated these road trips. It was hours in the car just to get somewhere pretty, an hour outside the car looking at awful tourist shops, and back in the car to go home. I never understood the point of these trips, besides getting out of the house. Looking at nature from my window (actually back then I would be lying down in the backseat, ill from carsickness) never did anything for me. One of the many trips we took every summer in our search for nice windows was Waterton Lakes, Canada. That is my only memory of Canada and it's from when I was 9. If my parents had been camping people then we would have had a great time living in Montana, but we weren't. This apple hasn't fallen far from the tree either. My idea of roughing it is a bed and breakfast without room service. I remember buying candy in Canada, and that it cost less than it did in the United States because I was buying with US money. My other experience with Canada has been while traveling around the world. Their citizens aren't especially fond of their southern neighbors I found, so I generally avoided them. I do, however, admire their pride in their politics. I remember one summer after University a fleet of Canadian Naval boats surrounded a small Spanish boat catching fish illegally off their coast. Apparently the Spanish boat was taking fish that were too small. Canada felt it was their responsibility to protect the fish. Why am I waxing poetic about Canada? Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips is introducing a bill to Ontario which will ban advertising of internet gambling websites. Having never lived there and not being overly familiar with the people or the culture (besides the fact that they have good beer and great comedians) I figured I would write what I knew about Canada from personal experience. Right now online gambling is illegal in Canada, but no one in the government has done anything about it. As one of the largest internet gambling server provider locations is Kahnawake (as in the Kahnawake Gaming Commission) I can see why Canadian officials are looking the other way. Not that this is related, of course. I also would like to state that I think it's wonderful that the country of Canada is not a nanny state which feels the need to control how their citizens spend their hard earned money. (Lest some official be reading this article and get the wrong idea.) Apparently Phillips feels that too many young people are gambling online and banning the advertising should help curb that. "There's no doubt that there's a substantial number of young people who are participating on these illegal gambling sites." I wonder how he feels about the fact that there's an exception to the law which provides an allowance for online racetrack betting. Does he care about the hypocrisy of it all, or is he just concerned about the money. Read the following comment from him and draw your own conclusions. "In the province of Ontario we've got a very large horseracing industry -- the breeders, the people who run the farms and the racetracks -- and it's very good business," said Phillips. "They say to us, 'We operate legally, we're doing everything we should, and yet our business is being hurt by these illegal activities.'" My conclusions had some words like 'economic protectionism' in them. Even Dr. Nigel Turner, a scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, isn't fooled by Phillips angelic new bill suggestion. "I guess on the one hand, you could justify it on the fact that online gaming is not regulated, whereas the gambling and casinos and slot machines are regulated within the province," said Turner. Turner added, "But realistically, it's because they can't tax the online gaming industry in the way it's currently being offered. I think that has more to do with it than anything else." Phillips is using a retarded report done in 2006 by the Ontario government-financed Responsible Gambling Council to justify his motives. This report states that online gambling is one of the few forms of gambling on the rise. Their reason for this would be because internet gambling increased from 0.6 per cent to 1.7 from 2001 to 2005 in Ontario. I say this is a retarded report because of course internet gambling grew. The internet in general grew. Back in 2001 people started to get dial-up modems in their home, now they have ADSL lines. It's a natural progression and it makes sense. The fact that they had to spend money and commission a report is asinine. At least Turner still has his head on his shoulders. He recognizes that while internet gambling mat be growing, "it still makes up a relatively small percentage of gambling problems. When we interviewed youth, most of the youth who have gambling problems were betting on sports or playing cards with each other." Hear that Phillips? Please stop demonizing this industry when there are such bigger fish to fry out there. I can tell you which youth are playing online, the ones which are studying math or physics and are perfecting their game in order to win money. How do I know these are the ones online? I used to have to pay them their winnings whenever they came into my casino. I had a pit in my stomach whenever I saw a university ID on the IP address. I knew the odds were against us. Some internet casinos block university students from playing, which is another reason why one should always read the entire terms and conditions before playing. Phillips, don't worry about the kids of today playing online. I'm not going to say that they are all addiction-free, but that the addicted are few and far between. One great detail about that report, they included online day trading as internet gambling. I wonder what day traders would think about that? Are they aware that they are included in the group which is considered 'too young' and 'at risk'? Posted on: October 22, 2006
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