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February 03, 2007
Unintended consequences
Wednesday's Wall Street Journal has a column by Peter Sanders, who thinks the biggest winner of tomorrow's Super Bowl may just be the bookies.
According to Sanders, the recent U.S. ban on internet gambling has led to a huge reduction in sports gambling resurgence in sports fans making book with their local oddsmaker.
The best quote from the article comes courtesy of a professional Las Vegas sports handicapper, Wayne Root:
"The online gambling ban should be re-named the Sopranos Support Bill."
And a consultant for on-line gambling interests makes a good point, too, her bias notwithstanding.
"The crackdown has taken the online bets out of a fairly transparent set of companies and put them into companies that aren't transparent at all."
While not much of a gambler (I haven't placed a bet since the early '90s), I was deeply opposed to the internet-gambling ban. Why is gambling okay when the Indians offer it, when the state does it via the lottery, but wrong when Joe Blue-collar wants some action without flying to Vegas or driving to the reservation -- or wants to try something requiring more skill than buying a scratcher at the 7-11?
More to the point, could you come up with a better illustration of our willingness to ignore history, to repeat the same mistakes of the past?
With legalized gambling, the state has an opportunity to regulate the conduct, ensure a fair game is being hosted. This leads to tax revenues for the state, as well as consumer confidence -- and drives the Mob out of the gambling biz.
Which is what happened in Vegas over the years. And, up until the greatest collection of jabbering poltroons and egomaniacal nincompoops in recorded history (i.e., the U.S. Congress) got involved, the Mob had little -- read no -- role in modern-day gambling.
But, thanks to the efforts of our nanny-state minders, the only place you can get some action is with Paulie Walnuts. And you do not want to miss a payment with dese guys.
Remember Prohibition? Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, The Valentine's Day Massacre?
It was all related to turf wars over booze. Supply and demand -- and the illegality of hooch -- guaranteed that someone would satisfy the nation's thirst, and the Mafia was only too glad to pour.
When Prohibition ended, oddly enough, the Mob moved on to other forbidden fruits.
When was the last time you heard about gangland-style shootouts over beer routes?
So, our recent experience is a Prohibition-in-reverse. Having eliminated safe, legal, regulated on-line gambling, the criminal underworld moves in to provide that which no one else can.
Alcohol, gambling, and the third leg of the triad, drugs.
All the same principles apply to the drug trade. How many people have been murdered by the drug dealers and their henchman? If anything, the drug-addled button-men wreaking havoc for the modern-day mobsters make one pine for the fedora-clad thugs of yore, who seemed to be more ... discriminating when playing a tune on their Chicago violins, killing fewer innocent bystanders and more of their own than the new breed of indiscriminate killers.
The legal system is choking on the drug-related cases, with non-violent addicts cycling through the courts with the distant threat of incarceration yielding few instances of junkies ripping the monkeys from their backs.
And the killings continue, drug dealer on drug dealer, buyer on seller, seller on buyer, and their product is still available to any and all who desire a chemically-induced break from their daily grind.
It's just amazing how we never -- never! seem to learn from past experience.
Why do I have a hunch that Tony Soprano would raise a glass of chianti to the Congressmen who banned internet gambling? And he'd be beaming if they'd only consider reenacting Prohibition.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 3, 2007 09:11 PM
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