Investigating Online Gambling
December 11, 2009
With the hearings underway for online gambling,
some interesting ideas have come forward. One is
that there are technologies out there that will
make the regulation of online gambling much
cleaner and easier to see and participate in.
The experts that testified said that the
technologies that are out there would make
legalizing and regulating the online gambling
very easy and it would make taxation of it even
easier.
Those that support the idea of legalized online
gambling said that there was a need for the
taxation alone – and said that the industry
would bring in roughly $16 billion a year for
the United States. They said that the majority
of that online gambling revenue would come from
US citizens alone. Representative Barney Frank
said that he was looking into new legislation
that would legalize some forms of online
gambling and change the way that it was
regulated based on the information that they had
gotten from these hearings.
Those against online gambling said that if it
was legalized that it would take jobs from those
traditional legal gaming venues that are already
out there. They said that if it was legalized
that more people would turn to online gambling
instead of land based and they would end up
hurting the industry beyond repair. They pointed
out how hard it is for the casinos right now,
and said that it would only get worse if online
gambling was legalized.
Some said that instead of prohibiting online
gambling outright – which is what they are
trying unsuccessfully to do now – that they
should work together to keep it under control.
They said that regulation would make it safer
and more secure for the players, and they said
that the country could benefit from it as well.
