[473] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Don't Legalize Internet Gambling
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Wed May 6 14:29:51 2009
Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 11:01:42 -0700
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Don't Legalize Internet Gambling
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000558.html
Greetings. Regular readers know that I proudly support civil
liberties, freedom of speech, and the broadest possible open use of
the Internet.
On the other hand, I am not a supporter of rape, particularly the rape
of the most vulnerable members of society.
So I hope it doesn't come as too much of a surprise that I'm very
strongly opposed to Congressman Barney Frank's new legislation to
broadly legalize Internet-based gambling
( http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5454Z720090506 ).
I approach this issue from multiple angles -- but they all end up at
the same dark, dank, bottomless pit.
We can start with a basic premise provable by most any student who has
passed a first year statistics course -- gambling is for suckers.
Gambling preys on false premises, ignorance of what odds really mean,
and tends to disproportionately attract desperate persons who least
can afford to throw their money down such rat holes.
Many years ago I voted for the establishment of the state lottery here
in California. It's popular among some folks who never gamble to call
the lottery a "stupidity tax" -- or to draw even more derogatory
comparisons with gamblers.
But I've come to very much regret that vote of mine, watching the
inane hype of the California Lottery ads over the years, plus the
individuals and families sucked down into destitution while buying
endless rolls of lottery cards instead of basic necessities.
On the ballot here in California in a couple of weeks is a proposal to
effectively expand the lottery -- I intend to vote against it (and
against most other proposals on the upcoming ballot, by the way. Fed
up? Yep!)
But even beyond the essential stupidity of gambling in general,
Internet gambling makes it all so very much worse.
Unless you're dealing with bets that have verifiable outcomes (like
sports betting), the opportunities for gambling service fraud in
Internet gambling are immense. Simulated decks of cards, simulated
slot machines, and all the other server-based gambling models are
essentially only a few lines of code away from ripping off gamblers
without leaving a clue.
Unlike physical gambling machines where firmware can be audited and
inspected to some degree of certainty (though frauds have occurred
with them as well), Internet server-based gambling applications are by
definition impossible to truly authenticate for honest operations,
despite the claims of their supporters. It's hard enough to write a
really honest random number generator. In an environment of instant
server updates the opportunities for crooked behavior are vast.
But perhaps even worse, the ubiquitous availability of legal Internet
gambling, potentially available to every home and office with Internet
access, would create a horrible trap.
Just as some persons have found themselves drawn to the evils of child
porn through the seeming isolation of a innocent-looking computer in
the corner of the bedroom, the disease of gambling addiction will
similarly be in wait on the nearby screen to suck finances dry.
Studies have already shown that Internet gambling is most dangerous to
those who can least afford to indulge -- desperate families, the
lonely elderly, and so on.
Proponents of legalized Internet gambling make a number of arguments.
First, they claim that they'll be sure that there are protections in
their legislation to guard against fraud, compulsive gambling, and so
on. Laudable sentiments, but excuse me if I suggest that such
"protections" will amount to a hill of beans in the real world of the
gambling-industrial complex.
Proponents also note that even without a formal structure for broad
legal Internet gambling in the U.S., large numbers of U.S. residents
still gamble over the Internet via various offshore venues. They
argue that if it's going to happen anyway, why shouldn't U.S.-based
government agencies get their pieces of the pie? Internet gambling
fans also point to an EU investigation of whether or not the current
U.S. stance discriminates against European gambling entities.
I am unconvinced. As far as I'm concerned, the most polite term to
describe the gambling industry, particularly those offshore operations
that sucker in U.S. gamblers now, is scum.
Gambling firms (and government lottery entities as well) enrich
themselves largely on the backs of people who can't rightly afford to
burn money by gambling -- and anyone who thinks that we don't all end
up paying for the results one way or another, is kidding themselves.
Free speech. Civil liberties. An open Internet. All important
issues -- all worth fighting for. But that doesn't mean that we
should willingly pour the most vulnerable of our fellow travelers into
what would inevitably be a meat grinder of legalized Internet
gambling.
This should not be an issue of Democrats vs. the GOP. It's a
fundamental ethical issue that should transcend political parties, and
strikes to the heart of what it means to care about our fellow men and
women.
Please don't legalize Internet gambling.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
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