My dad never made a bet in his life. I can always remember him telling his sons about this guy he knew who lost his house betting and his wife left him and his world fell apart. My dad is old and from a world I did not ever live in, but I guess a long time ago, people actually were losing their houses betting. It seems like we have come so far from the days when people bet on credit, found themselves down more money than they had and then the bad stuff begun.
Gamblers would bet without putting money down, lose and then get so called life-boats from their bookies. Their bookie would say, you are down 10,000 not a problem I will extend another 50,000 to you so you can still bet and get out of your struggles. Next thing the gamblers knew they were selling their house to cover the debt that rose on them. And that doesn’t discuss what would happen when a gambler couldn’t actually pay.
Is this what the Department of Justice wants to happen again? Is this what Congress is advocating. The industry has come a long way in the last 10 years. Most online Web sites require gamblers to put the money they want to bet up front rather than betting on credit. Who in their right mind would sell their house to make a bet? Not one single bettor. The new system – the post up environment – has softened these urban myths about losing everything. They force people to bet what they have and if they lose everything, at least it was only disposable income or worse case scenario, all the limit on your credit card; and I am not familiar with Visa breaking legs on non-payments.
Of course this new form of gambling has its issues too. Consumers and governments were worried the industry wasn’t regulated and that private owners of these new online books would take off with all the money.This was fixed in the last few years, as sports books started going public and becoming not only professional companies, but businesses that were both accountable to their shareholders and their gamblers.
Publicly traded companies emerged and started cleaning up this industry, taking the power out of the local bookies hands. Public shops started putting lower minimums on punters to ensure lower risk, they never took post up bets and their mandate was to establish a fun environment for their consumers to play. These public sports books are more about entertainment and small margins than trying to beat down their customer base for a buck.
So it is with that said, that I am in such shock of the lack of vision of the American Government. By specifically waiting until Gary Kaplan has taken his company public, the State Department purposely damaged all shareholders and hurt all punters with money sitting at BoS. Why would they not go after him with such venom when he was private, when there were less people to hurt?
By targeting the public companies the American Government are pushing gamblers back to privately owned shops in an unregulated environment. They are leading punters back towards post up betting with their local bookies and to the very industry that they grew up opposing.That is the irony of this nonsense – these people are still living in the era of my father, having been told urban myths about what happens to people who bet. They detest the industry because of the damage they think it does. But they come to this conclusion using an old school vision of what the industry was.
What exactly is the American Government trying to accomplish. If every online book disappears tomorrow will it stop betting? People were betting before telephones existed, before the Internet, without Western Union or BetonSports and they will still continue.
The goal of the U.S. Department of Justice should be to ensure that the American bettors are protected, that they don’t get in over their head, that they aren’t extorted with high interest on post up debts. They should be ensuring that all operators pay out money in a timely fashion and they should be focusing on receiving taxes for this activity.
The way to clean up gambling is to encourage bookmakers to go public or to set up some regulatory board that oversees the industry.
Why are they going after the public companies, the very companies cleaning this industry up? They are setting this industry back 10 years and they frankly should be ashamed of themselves.This editorial was sent to TheOnlineWire.com by an anonymous contributor.
This is very interesting.