Why Is Gambling Illegal In Most States
Most of the countries that are former members of the British commonwealth share relatively same standpoints towards gambling operations. In essence, they allow them to exist, but to a certain degree. One of the weirdest aspects that you may have seen in a country’s gambling regulation is that online operators cannot offer their services to. The states also have differing legal gambling ages, with some states requiring the same minimum age for all types of gambling, while for others, it depends on the activity. For example, in New Jersey, an 18-year-old can buy a lottery ticket or bet on a horse race, but cannot enter a casino until age 21. Organized crime groups often run illegal gambling operations. These groups often use the money made from illegal gambling to fund other criminal activities, like the trafficking of humans, drugs. Gambling on the internet has become an extremely popular pastime—even though it is illegal in many states. Online sports betting, in particular, has increased on sites located in countries where.
If we learned anything in the United States from prohibition, it was that making something illegal doesn’t stop it from happening (and usually makes it worse). The history of gambling in the US is surely interesting and it’s something we still have to fight for til this day.
I think that when it comes to so-called “vices” in society, there’s always going to be someone arguing against them from a moral standpoint. That’s exactly what we saw in the 1930s in the days of prohibition. Huge numbers of people who argued against the legal sale of alcohol were primarily church goers who argued almost solely from a position of morality.
When they abuse it (or become full alcoholics), they can be violent and a drain on society.
So if we outlaw it, people will stop drinking! People who might have become alcoholics will be safe and protected from this evil scourge. Society as a whole will benefit.
This leaves out all the positive benefits of alcohol of course and assumes that the role of government is to protect people from themselves and restrict their freedoms, but honestly, that’s a bit beside the point here.
Here’s the real point—did it work? And would it work for gambling?
If you know anything about prohibition, you know that it didn’t.
First of all, we can thank prohibition for organized crime in this country. Sure, there was organized crime before to a degree, but they really struggled for funding. When alcohol, which was and is hugely profitable and popular, was suddenly made illegal, the demand didn’t disappear. If anything, it got worse.
There was profit to be made, but all legal alcohol producers were out of business. Some entrepreneurial criminals (who were already committing crimes anyway) say “Gee, we should sell this stuff! Beats the heck out of beating people up for money and robbing banks.”
And they did. And they made an enormous amount of money.
Drinking didn’t stop.
Were these men alcoholics? Certainly a handful may have been, but the vast majority were normal people like you and me.
They enjoyed their drinking, and they didn’t like being told what to do. That’s pretty much how you could describe the entire country.
You can apply the same line of thinking to any type of problem you name that’s been made illegal. Making gambling illegal will absolutely not stop gambling.
Why Is Gambling Illegal In Most States Won
Instead, it will drive gambling underground.
And that’s where we start to run into problems.
1- People Are Going to Gamble Whether It’s Legal or Not
Just like people were going to drink during prohibition despite it being illegal, people are going to gamble no matter what.
I think where people get really tripped up on this issue is that, in their eyes (the prohibitionists), gambling is basically evil (obviously it’s not). But let’s look through their eyes. They see gambling as a sin, and they often see it on the same level as murder or theft. It’s wrong no matter how they look at it.
But for the average person, this is obviously flawed thinking. Murder and theft are crimes that have direct victims. It is impossible for me to steal something without there being a victim.
The same is not the case with gambling or drinking.
Now those who think it should be outlawed will argue that there are victims, that when someone gambles all their money away (which happens extremely rarely), that their families or friends are harmed. I certainly don’t deny that.
The difference is that those victims are not happening in every case. In fact, people become victims so rarely that you have to wonder if it’s really the gambling or alcohol that’s responsible at all. Something like 2.6% of people in the U.S. have a problem gambling. That means that over 97% of people who gamble do so just fine, without creating victims.
So these people think that because victims are marginally possible that the practice should be outlawed completely? That’s way different than theft or murder, which produces a victim in every case.
By that line of thinking, cars should be illegal. Most people don’t know someone who has a problem gambling (because it’s so rare), but almost everyone knows someone who has had their life changed because of a car wreck.
Then they might say, “Well cars serve a purpose! Gambling doesn’t. It’s just a bunch of games.” First of all, I would argue that games serve a hugely positive purpose in society, but let’s lay that aside for a moment. By this line of thinking, all sports should be illegal. Soccer can be dangerous. People drink too much at games. Sometimes there’s even stampedes.
Yet where are the advocates to shut down soccer entirely? They’re hard to find.
Gambling is absolutely a victimless crime. The people who are committing crimes who happen to also gamble are the ones responsible for the problems, not the gambling. If you take away the gambling, they’ll find some outlet for their problems.
So because gambling is a victimless act (just like drinking), people aren’t going to view it the same as theft or murder. They’re going to partake anyway because they just don’t feel bad about it (and they shouldn’t!).
Almost all adults can drink alcohol just fine and act responsibly. The same is true for gambling. Alcohol and gambling are not directly responsible for issues that problem gamblers or problem drinkers cause—the problem gamblers and problem drinkers are the problem.
2- Legalized Gambling Eliminates the Criminal Element (And Reduces It in Other Ways)
When prohibition took place back in the 1930s, alcohol began being created and distributed by criminals. No business could get away with it, and any that tried would have to have a large operation that would almost certainly get found out.
So what happened is that most alcohol was being produced by small numbers of people who had deep levels of trust with each other (or who operated completely alone). Their goal was to make money, and they did.
They weren’t exactly worried about health standards.
This led to a number of problems. When alcohol was legal, there were standards and rules as to how it was made. If a business was selling alcohol that was low quality or actually poisoning people, they’d quickly go out of business, so that became rare. In fact, the best way to make money was to produce high quality alcohol, so suppliers employed people who had a great deal of experience.
When everything moved underground, two things happened. One was that alcohol became suddenly much more valuable (because it was in high demand with a low supply). The other was that all the people who knew how to create great alcohol weren’t doing so because it was illegal.
High demand, high potential profit, and nobody around to make it who knew what they were doing.
Every criminal with even an inkling of how to produce alcohol now had a huge incentive to start producing the stuff. Many people died or went blind during prohibition because they drank low-quality alcohol.
That’s what happens when something victimless is made illegal—criminals take over, and they reduce quality and cause harm.
The exact same thing would happen with gambling were it made completely illegal. It already does happen in states where gambling is illegal.
However, because it’s illegal, it essentially has to be run by criminals. Casino owners and operators across the world are incredibly intelligent, high-functioning individuals who know how to run a business and value customer service. Land based or real money online casinos, just like any other product or service in the world, legal gambling is run at a high level of quality because business owners know quality leads to more money.
Underground gambling doesn’t have this same mindset. First of all, you’re dealing with criminals, so they’re not worried about quality really at all. Second, they have a hard-to-find product. They don’t need to have a high level of quality because they’re the only show in town.
Third, because they’re already criminals, they don’t mind bringing other criminal elements along with them. Illegal gambling can be dangerous for precisely this reason. Many of the people willing to set up something illegal like this may be violent people or have other criminal intentions. They might just rob you and take your money.
And what could you do about it? Call the police? Hardly.
Making gambling illegal makes the activity so much more dangerous. Gambling today in states where it’s legal is absolutely safe, fun, and of a high quality. The legality of it protects everyone and keeps the criminals occupied somewhere else.
Conclusion
I’ll admit that there could be a number of other reasons why gambling should be legal, but I think these are 2 of the best.
Overall, it’s time for lawmakers to dive into the reality that prohibiting gambling can do more bad than good.
Every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. five white balls are selected out of a drum containing 59 white balls, and one red ball is chosen out of a drum containing 35 red balls. The jackpot is won by matching all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball. Tickets cost $2.
After rolling more than 16 consecutive times without a winner, the Powerball jackpot shot up to $587.5 million, the second-largest in U.S. history, and the largest for Powerball, before two winning tickets with the numbers 5, 16, 22, 23, 29 and a Powerball of 6 were announced by the Multi-State Lottery Association, which has run the Powerball game since 1992.
The first winning ticket belonged to the Hill family of Dearborn, Missouri. They have already appeared at a press conference where they were handed an oversized check made out for their share: $293,750,000 (before taxes). Although the chances of any single ticket’s winning the jackpot were 1 in 175 million (making it more likely that someone would die from a lightning strike or a bee sting than win), the Hills bought five tickets on the day of the Powerball drawing at the Trex Mart gas station in Dearborn, a town of 500 north of Kansas City. “Tickets sold at a rate of 130,000 a minute nationwide — about six times the volume from a week ago. That pushed the jackpot even higher,” said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association.
The other winning ticket was sold at a 4 Sons Food Store in Fountain Hills, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. The winner has come forward, but as of this writing his name has not been released.
About the same time the Powerball frenzy was taking place, the peaceful and voluntary actions of Americans who prefer another gambling medium were ended — thanks to the hypocritical and oppressive actions of the U.S. government.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a civil complaint in federal district court in Washington, D.C., on November 26 seeking an injunction against Intrade, a prediction market for non-sports-related events. Intrade is an exchange market that allows its customers to make predications (by buying and selling shares) on the yes or no outcome of real-world events: candidate x to win an election, actor x to win an Academy Award, contestant x to win on American Idol.
According to a CFTC press release, the complaint charges Intrade “with offering commodity option contracts to U.S. customers for trading, as well as soliciting, accepting, and confirming the execution of orders from U.S. customers, all in violation of the CFTC’s ban on off-exchange options trading.”
Said David Meister, the Director of the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement,
It is against the law to solicit U.S. persons to buy and sell commodity options, even if they are called “prediction” contracts, unless they are listed for trading and traded on a CFTC-registered exchange or unless legally exempt. The requirement for on-exchange trading is important for a number of reasons, including that it enables the CFTC to police market activity and protect market integrity. Today’s action should make it clear that we will intervene in the “prediction” markets, wherever they may be based, when their U.S. activities violate the Commodity Exchange Act or the CFTC’s regulations.
In its continuing litigation the CFTC seeks civil monetary penalties, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and permanent injunctions against further violations of federal commodities law, as charged, among other relief.
This is the same government agency that earlier this year rejected an application by the North American Derivatives Exchange to operate a market for contracts relating to the U.S. elections. The commission argued that political event contracts constitute “gaming” that is “contrary to the public interest.”
Because of the CFTC complaint, Intrade issued this statement to its U.S. customers: “We are sorry to announce that due to legal and regulatory pressures, Intrade can no longer allow US residents to participate in our real-money prediction markets. Unfortunately this means that all US residents must begin the process of closing down their Intrade accounts.”
With lotteries in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia, one would think that customers of Intrade would have no trouble finding another gambling option. But aside from state lotteries, Americans’ gambling options are somewhat limited unless they live near, or are willing to travel to, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or the Mississippi River. True, some states have casinos run by Indian tribes, some have horse or dog racing that one can wager on, and some have legalized slot machines or poker rooms in selected areas, but Nevada is the only state that has legalized casino-style gambling statewide.
All forms of gambling that have been legalized throughout the United States have one thing in common: they all exist only with government permission. It is the state governments that license and regulate casinos, pari-mutuel wagering, slot machines, and poker rooms. It is the state governments that maintain a monopoly on lotteries. In most areas of the country, private, unlicensed gambling is simply illegal.
For example, in my state of Florida: “Whoever plays or engages in any game at cards, keno, roulette, faro or other game of chance, at any place, by any device whatever, for money or other thing of value, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083” [s. 849.08]. An exception is made for a penny-ante game of “poker, pinochle, bridge, rummy, canasta, hearts, dominoes, or mah-jongg in which the winnings of any player in a single round, hand, or game do not exceed $10 in value” [s. 849.085, 2, a].
And no one in Florida had better try to compete with the Florida Lottery, for it is unlawful in Florida to set up a lottery; dispose of property by a lottery; conduct any lottery drawing; assist in conducting a lottery; attempt to operate, conduct, or advertise a lottery; possess any lottery implement; sell or offer for sale any lottery ticket; possess any lottery ticket; assist in the sale of a lottery ticket; possess any lottery advertisement; or possess any “papers, records, instruments, or paraphernalia designed for use, either directly or indirectly, in, or in connection with, the violation of the laws of this state prohibiting lotteries” [s. 849.09, 1, a-k].
Why Is Gambling Illegal In Most States Created
But why is that the case in Florida and elsewhere? Why are the peaceful, voluntary actions of consenting adults prohibited? Why is gambling illegal?
We are told by opponents of legalized gambling that gambling is psychologically addictive, that it leads to financial ruin, that it leads to compulsive gambling, that it harms families, that it leads to criminal activity to support one’s gambling habit, and that it increases crime in areas where gambling venues are located. Religious people add that gambling is immoral, that it is a vice, or that is it a sin. Even economists weigh in on the subject, telling us how great the odds are against winning the lottery and that gambling is a type of regressive tax that hurts low-income people. Every time someone wins a substantial lottery jackpot, there are news stories about how bad it is to win such a large sum of money.
Those things may all be true, but none of them can legitimately be said to be a reason for gambling to be illegal.
Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have state-run lotteries. Forty-seven states allow charitable gambling such as bingo. Thirty-nine states permit pari-mutuel wagering. Nineteen states have legalized commercial casinos. Thirty states have Indian casinos. Only the states of Hawaii and Utah forbid all forms of gambling.
If gambling should be proscribed by governments because it is harmful, ruinous, crime-fostering, or immoral, then governments — to be consistent — should outlaw all forms of gambling and certainly not be running lotteries. How can the 48 states that allow certain forms of gambling justify any of their laws that make other forms of gambling a criminal activity?
The real reasons so many forms of gambling are illegal in so many states are that governments are grossly hypocritical and arbitrary when it comes to their gambling laws and governments see themselves as nanny states with their citizens as children who need to be protected from vice and their own stupidity.
In a genuinely free society (as opposed to a relatively free one), people have the freedom to make any wager or bet any amount of money they choose on sporting events, horse races, casino gambling, pari-mutuel wagering, lotteries, prediction markets, private poker games, or any other gambling activity.
That does not mean that gambling is good or that it has no negative consequences. There is a distinction between favoring a thing and favoring the legalization of a thing. It is perfectly consistent for someone to disdain some or all forms of gambling and yet fully support the legalization of all gambling enterprises and activities. The issue is one of freedom, not preference.
It goes without saying that there should be no federal or state laws that relate to gambling in any way. Not because the gambling industry provides people with jobs or the states with revenue, but for the simple reason that there should be no federal or state laws prohibiting any voluntary activity between consenting adults.