Editorial: Trying to turn off online gambling

Monday, July 27, 1998 | 11:48 a.m.

THE Senate took the appropriate action last week when it voted 90-10 to ban Internet gambling.

Under the prohibition, individual gamblers could be sent to prison for three months and fined $500. The penalties for the operators of these sites are more severe. Businesses that run Internet gambling sites could be sent to prison for four years and fined $20,000 or three times the amount of bets they received. For those living in Nevada where gambling is legal, such sanctions might seem extreme.

But the fact is that this is illegal gambling with no government oversight whatsoever. Many of these companies operate overseas and are shady outfits. Some rig the games to cheat customers out of their money and even accept money from children who get hold of their parents' credit cards.

And it's not as if this is an isolated problem affecting a handful of people. Internet gambling has exploded in the past few years and it is estimated that 140 websites offer casino-style wagering. The Justice Department estimates that at least $600 million was wagered illegally on sports alone through the Internet in 1997, 10 times what was bet in 1996.

Despite the growing popularity, it's hard to imagine why anyone would be willing to place an online wager. After all, unlike states such as Nevada that have strict regulation, there is no government oversight of Internet gambling. Sometime in the future there indeed might be regulation of Internet gambling. But that day doesn't appear to be any time soon.

Even if the Senate version becomes law, no one is saying seriously that it will be easy to enforce such a law. But just because there are inherent difficulties in regulating commerce on the Internet doesn't mean that the government should throw up its hands and concede that illegal gambling companies have won.