Online Gambling

On October 6, the George W. Bush signed into law the Safe Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006 which created funding for several port related anti-smuggling/terror measures. The bill I believe is a sound one, however, similar to the way "pork-barrel" spending is snuck into other bills; the bill included a provision to prohibit Internet gambling by outlawing financial transfers to overseas casinos. Presumably the provision appeals to several groups; the Christian Right is certainly pleased by federally imposed limits on what they consider vice, while others legitimately believe it is a way to restrict money laundering.

I am against most federally legislated restrictions on individual liberties, particularly when issues of morality are imposed by government. I do appreciate the money-laundering argument. However, I do not think that blocking online gambling is necessary to achieve that end. Once the law was passed the London-traded gaming companies' equity lost approx. 50% of their market values as traders believed that it would severely limit the ability of these companies to grow earnings considering their largest markets were in the U.S. Surely these companies would have happily worked with U.S. regulators in order to create transparency in their cash flows and even acquiesce to taxing gains rather then losing that business altogether.

Further, the legislation seems to be a blatant violation of WTO rules, as brought to my attention by this blogger, he explains, "the WTO allows a country to ban some goods and services within its borders (Muslim countries with alcohol, for example), but you can't ban a good or service from another country while allowing it to be sold from domestic providers. That's sort of the whole point of "free trade." The gambling ban does exactly that."