{"id":1144,"date":"2007-01-23T21:05:50","date_gmt":"2007-01-24T02:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2007\/01\/treating-problem-gamblers-among-flaws-of-war-on-gambling\/"},"modified":"2007-01-23T21:05:50","modified_gmt":"2007-01-24T02:05:50","slug":"treating-problem-gamblers-among-flaws-of-war-on-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2007\/01\/treating-problem-gamblers-among-flaws-of-war-on-gambling\/","title":{"rendered":"Treating Problem Gamblers Among Flaws of War on Gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"

new federal law that targets online gambling hasn\u2019t deterred Wheatfield resident Matt Wilkinson from playing Internet poker.
\nThe legislation has been little more than an inconvenience for Porter resident and poker devotee Larry Austin, and it hasn\u2019t impressed the head of the area\u2019s largest gambling treatment program.
\nThe Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, tacked on to a port security bill and quietly signed into law by President Bush in October, makes it a crime to use credit cards or online payments to gamble. The federal Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System have until July to set up regulations to enforce the law.
\nBut the legislation is facing criticism from a rare pair: online poker players and people who help addicted gamblers.
\nAs government moves to quell Internet gambling, its first few steps have drawn criticism from the far corners of the industry. Poker players are agitated that gambling sites are shutting out U.S. customers. Gambling treatment administrators worry that online gambling will be pushed further off-shore and out of their reach, and a Virginia lawmaker who spearheaded an initiative last year to ban online gambling believes the new law isn\u2019t strong enough.
\n\u201cWhat you\u2019ll find is that rogue sites are going to pop up that have no interest in safe guarding the product,\u201d said Michael Bolcerek, president of the Poker Players Alliance, a lobbying group formed in opposition to a federal bill proposed in 2005. \u201cIt has unintended consequences; that\u2019s what you\u2019ll see going forward with prohibition. Just like you saw the unintended consequences of alcohol prohibition \u2014 the speakeasies.\u201d
\nThe new law comes as the Internet is expanding the reach of sports betting and poker to living rooms across the country. It has never been easier for gamblers to access credit, play a round of Texas Hold \u2019em or place an online wager on a basketball game, and the government is starting to take notice.
\nIn November, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced investigators had used existing criminal laws to take down a $3.3 billion online sports betting ring \u2014the largest gambling bust in its history.
\nUntil the bill passed in October, online gambling had gone virtually unregulated, operating in a shadowy area of the law. But the new legislation has done little to appease advocates of treating problem gambling.
\nKeith Whyte, executive director of the Washington-based National Council on Problem Gambling, believes the law will do little to slow the growth of online gambling.
\n\u201cWill it impact gambling? Yes, but not much,\u201d Whyte said. \u201cI think it will make it a little bit less convenient for casual gamblers, but heavy gamblers and certainly problem gamblers will take the extra step and can easily find ways around this law.\u201d
\nWhyte\u2019s organization does not oppose or endorse gambling, but instead fights for more resources to be put toward the treatment and prevention of problem and pathological gambling.
\nThe weakness of the law, Whyte and others believe, is that it doesn\u2019t ban online gambling. It instead bars electronic payments to unlawful gambling sites and holds financial institutions responsible for blocking restricted transactions. The law excludes online horse betting and fantasy sports sites.
\n\u201cHow is your bank going to prove that four steps down the line your funds came from Internet gambling, especially if it\u2019s companies that are not under U.S. jurisdiction?\u201d Whyte asked. \u201cIt adds a couple of steps. It will inconvenience casual gamblers, but it\u2019s not likely to stop problem gamblers.\u201d
\nRep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., a key sponsor to a previous online gambling bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, called the new legislation a \u201cstep in the right direction in the fight against online gambling,\u201d but said shortly after it was passed that he was preparing a stronger bill to combat Internet gambling.
\nPortions of Goodlatte\u2019s original proposal passed by the House were stripped from the final version of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act when it was passed by Congress as an addition to the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006.
\nOnline poker players say it is relatively easy to find third-party sites that will handle online payments, making it difficult for banks or regulators to prove money is connected to gambling.
\nMatt Wilkinson, a Wheatfield sales manager who has been playing online poker on and off for five years, says the new law has frustrated players, but has done little to stop the game. When one site shuts down, Wilkinson said, players find another company.
\nWilkinson believes lawmakers went after online gambling because companies that run the sites operate outside of their jurisdiction.
\n\u201cMost of them are based in Costa Rica, Antigua, Barbados \u2014places that don\u2019t have a lot of laws in place to report their revenues,\u201d Wilkinson said. \u201cI don\u2019t think the motivation behind passing the act has anything to do with problem gambling or trying to quell their habits.\u201d
\nLike Wilkinson, 41-year-old poker player Larry Austin said the closure of some Web sites to U.S. customers has been merely an inconvenience.
\n\u201cIt criminalizes a game. To me, poker is like baseball, it\u2019s a great American pastime. Who hasn\u2019t really played poker at the kitchen table?\u201d asked Austin, a writer who lives in Porter.
\nAustin objects to the way the federal law was passed. \u201cThey included it in a port security bill and they passed it in the middle of the night,\u201d he said.
\nRenee Wert, a psychologist who runs a gambling recovery program for Jewish Family Services of Buffalo and Erie County, said poker can be just as devastating as other forms of gambling. Wert\u2019s program, which until last year was the only provider of gambling treatment services in Western New York, has seen a rise in the number of people seeking help because of online gambling.
\nWert says online gambling has a dangerous mix of easy access to gambling, instant credit and few barriers to underage players.
\n\u201cThe faster the rate of play, the more addictive potential something has,\u201d said Wert, who is also vice president of the New York State Council on Problem Gambling. \u201cAnything that\u2019s going to make it easy for you to gamble quickly, there\u2019s more of a tendency to develop a problem.\u201d
\nThe ease of online gambling \u2014anyone with a credit card and a computer can access sites \u2014 has expanded gambling\u2019s realm and raised the stakes for criminal investigators.
\nThe November online gambling bust was the largest sports betting ring ever taken down.
\nThe sophisticated online betting ring, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said, booked more than $3.3 billion in wagers in little more than two years. The indictment included 27 people, including boss James W. Giordano of Pine Crest, Fla., and three corporations that included the firm that designed the operation\u2019s Web site.
\nInvestigators say the scope of the operation dwarfed traditional betting rings because the Internet allowed it to extended its reach.
\nBrown believes the indictment sends a strong message to Internet gambling operators.
\n\u201cFor the first time ever, an Internet provider and a Web designer were charged with directly participating in a billion-dollar-a-year global gambling operation,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThis landmark prosecution has potentially far-ranging implications not just for Internet gambling sites, but for those who assist them in building their criminal enterprises.\u201d
\nSource: Lockport Union Sun & Journal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

new federal law that targets online gambling hasn\u2019t deterred Wheatfield resident Matt Wilkinson from playing Internet poker. The legislation has been little more than an inconvenience for Porter resident and poker devotee Larry Austin, and it hasn\u2019t impressed the head of the area\u2019s largest gambling treatment program. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, tacked on … Continue reading Treating Problem Gamblers Among Flaws of War on Gambling<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}