Some of us like to gamble. Americans bet a hundred million dollars every day, and that's just at legal places like Las Vegas and Indian reservations. Much more is bet illegally.Drunk driving can be fun and harmless too, providing you ignore the occasional collateral damage, as Mr. Stossel seems intent on doing with regards to problem gambling. At least the authoritarian Focus on the Family folks take the issue seriously. Libertarians like Stossel do not.
So authorities crack down. They raided a VFW branch that ran a poker game for charity. They ban lotteries, political futures markets, and sports betting. They raid truck stops to confiscate video poker machines. Why?
On my Fox Business News show tonight, Chad Hills of Focus on the Family says: "These machines have been shown to be extremely addictive. That's a huge concern, primarily for kids, because it's hard to keep them away."
Well, I certainly agree kids shouldn't gamble, and some people do wreck their lives. But why can't adults be left to do what we want to do?
Hills and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), both eager to ban gambling, talk about "addiction" leading to bankruptcy, crime, and suicide.
I'm skeptical. People are responsible for the consequences of their bad habits. I thought Focus on the Family and conservatives like Kyl believed in self-responsibility.
...Hills claims that the 1999 National Gambling Impact Study concluded that 15 million Americans are problem and pathological gamblers. But like many people who want to ban things, he distorts the data. The study's 15 million "problem gamblers" included people who might get in trouble.
"Ninety-nine percent of the American public has no problem with gambling," Bloch says. "They should have the freedom to gamble if they want to gamble online. There is no casino that is being forced into people's homes."
By the way, Hills said he'd oppose legal gambling even if it weren't associated with wrecked lives. Why? "Gambling is the art and the science of deception that feeds on the exploitation of human weakness for the sole purpose of monetary gain."
To that, I say, so what? Will they ban the stock market next? Filmmaking is the art and science of deception. Poker is just a game where deception and bluffing are the skills.
For self-responsible adults, gambling can be fun and harmless. A free country is supposed to treat adults as though we are self-responsible. Government should let us learn from our mistakes rather than treat us like children.
...In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill wrote, "Over himself and over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
Sovereign. Hear that, busybody politicians?
Also, the busybody Christians know something you do not, Mr. Stossel. John Stuart Mill notwithstanding, over the body and mind, the individual is not sovereign. Have you ever heard of addiction? Do you even understand what it means? A bit of humility is in order here!
A lot of problem gambling can be controlled with absurdly simple remedies. For example, in Queensland, AU, I was defeated by a law there that makes credit-card-based cheque-cashing services illegal in a casino. It's a nice, little nanny-state regulation that works. Introduce THAT into the USA and you would cut off half the casinos' revenues immediately. All you need are a few speed bumps to slow the problem gambler down. Minor technical fixes. Casual gamblers wouldn't even notice these things. The fact that we won't even consider them in the USA says all you need to know about people's REAL priorities.
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