Several U.S. legislators have made it their mission to protect the world from online gambling, and they aren't going to stop until they get their way. But most of what's coming out of Washington these days is a smoke-and-mirrors show, rather than an effort to deal with the underlying problem.
Rep. James Leach (R-Iowa) last week sent out a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives asking them to co-sponsor his anti-gambling bill. Two other Internet wagering opponents, Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio and Rep. John LaFalce, D-N.Y, also signed the letter, dated February 5.
H.R. 556, or the 'Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act,' failed to pass when it was originally introduced on February 12, 2001, but it resurfaced last fall after Leach persuaded Oxley to include it in the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001.
That attempt to sneak the legislation in through the back door failed when people figured out that online gambling didn't really have much to do with terrorists.
But that didn't stop Leach. Neither did Bob Goodlatte's decision to reintroduce his own Net wagering prohibition bill on November 1, 2001. That bill would update the Wire Act of 1961 to make it illegal to place a bet online.
Leach is pushing members of the House to support his bill over Goodlatte's, suggesting that it offers a better way to deal with the 'problems' of Internet gambling.
The second sentence in the letter states that online gambling "is fast becoming one of the most critical issues confronting thousands of American families." It also notes that H.R. 556 utilizes recommendations from the National Gambling Impact Study of 1999 and that it is favored by the Christian Coalition and the NCAA.
According to the actual language of the bill, however, it is designed to safeguard financial institutions from online gamblers who are defaulting on their credit card debts and to eliminate offshore money laundering operations. There is no mention of the social costs in the text of the bill.
So why, then, is Leach talking about safeguarding the family now when the bill says virtually nothing about the family and a whole lot about "debt collection problems for insured depository institutions?"
That's a tough question to answer, but one way to drum up support for floundering causes is to play on people's emotions. Regardless of what Leach's objectives were when he introduced the bill and what they are now, neither deal with the real problem here.
The reason why they don't is because opponents of online gambling don't seem to understand what the problem is. It isn't people using their credit cards to gamble online, it's the fact that some people are addicted to gambling. And a very small percentage of these people happen to gamble online.
If online gambling really is a problem for credit card companies as Leach suggests, let them deal with it. Visa has already taken steps to monitor traffic at online casinos, and Discover and American Express stopped processing Internet gambling transactions a while ago. I find it a little hard to believe that companies making several billion dollars a year need Congress to save them from the average consumer. That's what lawyers are for.
Outlawing financial transactions at online casinos won't save the American family, just as shutting down liquor stores won't stop people from being alcoholics. Alcoholics need help, and so do problem gamblers. And that should be the objective here - getting help for the people who need help - not pulling the plug on the party for everyone else.
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