Internet Gambling
Internet gambling is one of the most predatory businesses in the world which is why public opinion polls show that two out of three Americans oppose its legalization.
It is one of the purest forms of predatory gambling for at least four reasons: the speed of the game, the frequency of play (gambling operators allow users to play multiple games at once), the intensity of the high or buzz people get when they play and the enormous amount of money people lose, all of which goes down twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It is the equivalent of opening a Las Vegas casino in every house, apartment and dorm room in America.
Gambling operators say these facts justify why we need to “regulate” predatory internet gambling. Yet casinos like Harrah’s make 90 percent of its gambling profits from the financial losses of 10 percent of its visitors, according to Christina Binkley’s book, “Winner Takes All.’’
The obvious question is this: how do you “regulate” a business in which nearly all its profits are based on people who are addicted and out-of-control? The answer is you can’t.
A First-Rate Summary of Predatory Internet Gambling
A first-rate summary of the predatory internet gambling issue.
Internet Gambling Offers Another Avenue for Organized Crime and Money Laundering
A report by Dr. John Kindt, a University of Illinois Professor of Business and Legal Policy, shows government-sanctioned gambling to be economically and politically destabilizing. As exemplified by casinos, gambling provides quick and substantial quantities of stable cash flow to predatory gambling operators, and particularly in less-secure governmental systems, these operators are often associated with groups dedicated to destabilizing the government, such as organized crime, terrorist, and rebel groups.
Internet Gambling – Organized Crime and Money Laundering
Fact Sheet on Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
Here is a fact sheet about UIGEA when it was passed in 2006.
U.S. Public in 2010: Keep Las Vegas in Las Vegas
A March 2010 poll from Farleigh Dickinson University finds that 67% of Americans want internet gambling to remain illegal.
Why Legalizing Sports Betting and Online Gambling is a Loser for New Jersey
In an excellent op-ed column, former New Jersey Casino Control Commission member Carl Zeitz examines why legalizing sports betting and online gambling is a bad deal for New Jersey.
Sports Betting and Online Gambling Are Not a Smart Bet for New Jersey
Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling
The online gambling world is faced with a menace: poker bots. These are robots that have been programmed to play poker and beat the odds – and people are racking up debt because of them.
Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling
FBI Letter on Internet Gambling Issues
Below is a 2009 letter from the F.B.I.’s Cyber Division with responses to questions about internet gambling from the Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee. The letter includes statements that technology currently exists to both manipulate online gambling and to illicitly launder money through online gambling. Serious questions are also raised about the claims that online vendors could accurately validate the age of players.
FBI Letter on Internet Gambling
Poker Bots and Cheaters Make Online Gambling Even More Predatory
In the summer of 2010, one the world’s leading online predatory gambling companies, PokerStars, refunded $2.1 million to its customers after discovering cheaters colluded to rig games. In another incident, PokerStars paid out another $80,000 to players who had unwittingly been up against poker “bots” – automatic card playing software. These bots are causing people to lose even more money than normal. Click on this link to the story and the podcast from BBC Radio 5. You will need to scroll halfway down the page to obtain the podcast.
Can the World of Online Poker Chase Out the Cheats?
Only ½ of 1% of All Americans Gambled Online for Money Last Year
PokerScout, a website that tracks online poker, estimates that 1.8 million people played poker for money in the U.S. last year. That’s ½ of 1% of all Americans. While only a very few are presently gambling online, the predatory gambling lobby is spending millions of dollars so it can dramatically increase the amount of citizens regularly losing money on extreme forms of gambling.
Poker Crackdown – Time to Fold Em
Poker Bots Taking Over Online Gambling
Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law is concerned that consumer protection is becoming extremely difficult as cheaters use “poker robots,” advanced intelligence programs, to tilt the tables.
“I know of no way to prevent somebody from having a bot on one computer telling him what to play on another computer,” Eggert said. “This is a huge problem for the industry in that recreational gamblers don’t want to go on their poker sites and get killed by somebody using a bot, and that is going to happen more and more as bots get smarter and smarter.”
“There are international competitions now to design the best poker-playing bots and they are doing a darn good job,” Eggert said.
Chairwoman Says Go Slow On Legalizing Web Poker