ANDREW STUTTAFORD WRITES:

I’ve finally got round to my emails on the topic of that Internet gambling/national security bill and there are far, far too many to reply to. No-one who wrote to me was a fan of the move and there were a good few that said this was the ‘last straw’ so far as their November vote was concerned. Most of the opposition to the law was on broadly libertarian grounds, but there was another strain too, which made interesting reading in the light of Congress’ reputation at the moment.

Supposedly, the reason (apart, of course, from national security) that Senator Frist rushed through this legislation was to send a signal to the more moralistic voters out there. Maybe that will work, maybe it will not, but a revealingly large percentage of my correspondents felt that the real reason for passing the law was to protect the interests of Las Vegas, Indian tribes and other entrenched gambling interests. In other words, a piece of law designed to make the GOP look clean has made them look even dirtier than before.

Of all the uses of the Internet, gambling seems to me to be among the stupidest — I mean, the roulette wheel at the casino might be rigged, but the one flickering on your computer screen? How could you ever tell? — but people are allowed to be stupid. It was a bad bill, and whether or not its purpose was corrupt it stunk. If it was also a political misjudgment, well, that’s pretty much par for the course with this Congress, I’m afraid. I’m with Barney Frank on this one.

UPDATE: An email from Radley Balko. Balko writes:

On Internet gambling — the overwhelming majority of web wagers are on poker. And all of the major poker sites are heavily regulated and publicly traded (most on the London Stock Exchange). Watchdog groups routinely test them for fairness with dummy accounts that measure the randomness of the cards dealt. The major sites also all have pretty sturdy child protection measures, and some even allow for built-in limits if you don’t trust yourself with your money.

Of course, as soon as the bill passed, most of the major sites announced they’d cease doing business with U.S. consumers. I’m sure they’re scared to death now that DOJ is plucking overseas gaming execs out of airports and tossing them in prison (one wonders what kind of implications this will have for American travelers overseas). This means that the 95% of players who gamble recreationally and responsibly are now out of luck. But if you’re a curious minor or an addict, there are still plenty of sites that aren’t publicly traded, and aren’t regulated by Canada or the U.K. There’s also no telling who’s operating them, and there’s no recourse if they take your money. Those sites will almost certainly seee an uptick in traffic as a result of this dumb law.

I hope Stuttaford’s email pans out. This was paternalistic, big government moralizing at its worst. It’s sympomatic of what’s wrong with the GOP. That First slapped it onto a port security bill just hours before Congress was set to end the session and go home makes it all the more dubious. And that’s not even touching the carve-outs in the bill exempting state lotteries (which studies show are much more addictive than poker) and politically-powerful interests like horse racing.

The kicker is that the bill’s champion in the house — Bob Goodlatte — sits on the Internet Caucus, a group that’s supposed to keeping government regulation off the web.

I enjoy playing poker with real people, but I’ve never really had the gambling jones. Still, if people want to waste their money on this stuff, it’s nobody’s business but their own.