Editorial: Betting on a bad law

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006 | 7:47 a.m.

Congress has passed a law banning the use of credit cards, electronic fund transfers and checks for Internet gambling, effectively shutting down the $12 billion online betting industry in the United States.

President Bush is certain to sign the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that, according to a story by the Las Vegas Sun on Tuesday, could have a chilling effect on Las Vegas-based poker tournaments hosted by Harrah's Entertainment and MGM Mirage. Both companies, the Sun reports, have used Internet gambling sites as a way to lure players to Las Vegas for the real thing and such events as the wildly popular World Series of Poker.

As we have noted in a previous editorial, this legislation has all the underpinnings of Prohibition, which banned alcohol from 1920 to 1933. Congress repealed Prohibition because it was virtually impossible to enforce. Likewise, a ban on online betting would be difficult to enforce, and wagers will continue in a black market where all of the proceeds end up in the hands of businesses overseas.

We had hoped that Congress would have taken the approach championed by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., in which lawmakers would carefully examine all of the issues involved to see whether regulations and technology could track online betting, effectively restrict access by children and adequately collect taxes from this type of wagering.

But Republicans weren't looking for a sensible solution. They sought a politically palatable one that would appeal to the far-right religious conservatives whose votes they are in danger of losing in the Nov. 7 elections. Creating a system to adequately regulate online gambling was never going to be easy. But trying to ban it through the backdoor method imposed by this patently political law will be harder.