House approves Internet gambling ban

House easily approves Internet gambling ban

Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:29pm ET
By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. House on Tuesday approved a Republican-written bill to crack down on Internet gambling, in what critics said was an election-year appeal to the party's conservative base.

The House voted 317-93 to impose a ban on most forms of Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites. Internet gambling generates some $12 billion annually worldwide, half from American gamblers.

The bill exempted horse racing and lotteries from the ban.

"This is a scourge on our society. It causes innumerable problems," Republican Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, one of the bill's sponsors, said on the House floor before the vote.

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It figures a representative from Virginia would sponsor such a bill. Sometimes I hate my state. If they're going to ban Internet gambling, then I want a casino to be built somewhere close by. I couldn't even tell you where the closest casino is to me.

Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts said he thought the bill was "outrageous."
"If people want to do something, and it doesn't hurt anybody else, we ought to mind our own business," Frank said on Monday. "This is a bill to tell adults not to do something because people in this body disapprove of what they do."

I wish more people felt this way about about online gambling as well as certain other illegal activities. :cool2:

Does this mean that folks who wish to utilize the Internet from the U.S. to gamble will have to deposit money into off-shore banks?

Hopefully any notion of work-arounds is premature. These bills have passed the House in previous years, but never the Senate. There's still hope.

Any chance of this site getting shut down? Perhaps you could run it from Canada!

Is it possible? Yes. A similar site run by Washington State residents is already illegal apparently. Casino Player magazine just cancelled every subscription in Washington State! It is unclear whether they were forced to do so, or whether they did it to make a point.

I have a number of options that would be explored if needed. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.