My boyfriend is a professional poker player. The last week and a half, nearly the only conversation I've been getting from him is on the topic of poker, and for good reason: Bill Frist and the House of Representatives have just passed a bill effectively banning internet gambling. Being the logical individual I am, I agree with him that this prohibition is unjust, unconstitutional, and an idiotic move on the government's part. And also that Bill Frist should get herpes as soon as possible.

In my opinion, the core of the Internet Gambling debate is the same as that of abortion or gay marriage: there are a bunch of religious yahoos out there who want to impose their upright morals upon us, but that doesn't make it correct. Whether they think gambling is a vice or not, this bill is unconstitutional: as citizens of the United States, we're given the right to shuttle our money away if we so choose.

Then there's this funny little bit of language in the bill, which says Oh, we're going to ban every type of internet gambling except the types we like. Sports and horses are cool. And don't forget my fantasy baseball team! They are doing really well, can't cut them off now...

(II) All winning outcomes reflect the relative knowledge and skill of the participants and are determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals (athletes in the case of sports events) in multiple real-world sporting or other events.

I guess these guys really just don't understand what poker is: a whole lot of math, a whole lot of statistics, and a whole lot of strategy. I'm also pretty sure that they don't know the definition of hypocrite; they're saying that ALL INTERNET GAMBLING IS BAD BECAUSE OUR YOUTH CAN GET ATTRACTED TO IT MORE EASILY... except these types of internet gambling because they may or may not be based on statistics.

The biggest problem for me, though, barring the unconstitutionality and the complete idiocy, is that the government's whole reason for passing this bill is because they are goddamned lazy. Most Internet Gambling sites are based offshore. This poses a bunch of problems: do you tax the gamblers? do you tax the companies for having US customers even though they aren't on US soil? do you do some research to come up with a logical solution to regulate the industry that generates millions (if not billions) of dollars in tax revenue and stimulates the economy?

Not if you're the US government. If you're the US government, you just ban the supposed moral issue because you are lazy asses, even though you allow state-sponsored gambling (AC? Vegas? Hello?), which is probably more addictive, to continue.

This is an issue which will only impact 2-3% of Americans, but even if you don't care about online gambling, the hypocrisy, economic fallacy, and general restriction of rights and legislating morality of this issue should be a cause for concern. Banning activities for all adults because some young people hurt themselves through them is not rational and has never been a precedent for laws in our great country -- don't let it start being one now.