Another week, another smug, alarmist anti-online gambling editorial, this time from the Christian Science Monitor: Fresh from fixing Wall Street’s casinolike ways in high finance, Congress begins work Tuesday on a bill to overturn a 2006 law banning Internet gambling in the US. The measure is being rushed through the House Financial Services Committee on […]
Another anti-gambling editorial Read More »
news about gamblingThis Patriot-Ledger editorial–from which I’ve excerpted a tiny slice–says a great deal about how public debates about casino gambling are structured. Why not use innuendo and guilt by association, if you can’t find numbers to back you up? If BP had come here peddling an offshore oil well, the company would have been hooted out
Anti-casino rhetoric Read More »
news about gamblingPart-time economist and full-time curmudgeon Andy Rooney trashed the gambling business in a recent 60 Minutes piece: The thing that bothers me most about gambling is that people fritter away money so they don’t get to spend it on things that someone else has been paid to produce. Gambling produces nothing. There’s only so much
Andy Rooney takes on gambling Read More »
gambling & cultureCasinos in most of Russia are about the close. From BBC News: Gamblers in Moscow and other major Russian cities are placing their last bets ahead of a government ban on casinos and gaming halls. A new law comes into effect at midnight, confining gambling to four regions far from the capital. It bans gambling
Russian casinos closing Read More »
news about gamblingThis Christian Science Monitor editorial argues with some logic that gambling isn’t the best thing for the economy. But I think the last line is a bit utopian: One bright spot in this deep recession is that gamblers might be saying "Enough" to the lure of easy money and calling it quits. States, too, should
Even though it seems like casino legalization is a steady wave sweeping across the planet, some nations have chosen to outlaw casinos. Turkey is one of those, though it appears that gambling is still flourishing. From Sabah.com: It is forbidden to open casinos in Turkey; however, casinos are abundant in Turkey. Only in Istanbul are
Illegal Turkish casinos Read More »
news about gamblingRussia’s casino industry has seen explosive growth in the past few years, but things are changing. From the Miami Herald: Garish or goofy or grim, Russia’s casinos and slot-machine halls are some of the most vivid testimony to communism’s collapse. But, under legislation approved Wednesday by Russia’s lower house of parliament, the $6 billion industry
Russian casinos iced Read More »
news about gamblingThe Russian State Duma–their version of parliament–voted down a bill that would have created a new regulatory framework for Russian casinos. Existing regulation, it seems, is something of a slapdash affair. From RIA Novosti: The bill’s doom does not mean gamblers and casino proprietors have several more years to enjoy the absence of related legislation,
Russians veto casino bill Read More »
news about gamblingI’m hardly one to make light of problem gambling, but this story is ridiculous. From Ananova: Russian actors are being paid to pretend to be destitute beggars in a government scheme to discourage people from gambling. They will tell passers-by how they were once rich executives who lost everything after becoming addicted to gambling. Vladimir
With the closing of Bet On Sports’ American operations–and effectively its entire business (story here), it is clear that this case will be much different from the 2000 Jay Cohen trial. Some in the media have expressed wonder at the “secret” website launched to support indicted former BOS CEO David Carruthers. As I said in
Free Carruthers FAQ Read More »
news about gamblingIllegal gambling is notoriously hard to stamp out, because it is usually socially acceptable. A Philippine anti-gambling group wants to change that. From INQ7: A man from a remote barangay in Central Luzon unwittingly placed a bet on “jueteng,†the underground lottery so despised by the clergy in his area. He didn’t win the pot,
Not to make light of the current geopolitical-religious-cultural situation, but if bin Laden had his way, it’s safe to assume that Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, Tunica, and other communities whose economies depend on gaming-related tourism would be out of business. Oh yeah, all women working in the hospitality business would have to quit, and
No gambling under bin Laden Read More »
gambling & cultureAccording to one Malaysian parliamentarian, gambling leads to superstition. From The Star: -In the kampung, when people want to win numbers games, they go to see the bomoh and even make offerings to trees so that their numbers will come up winners. -All this shows that gambling can make people carry out deviationist practices,†said
Gambling can lead to deviationism? Read More »
gambling & cultureAnother day, another clash between religion and gambling, it seems. First of all, a Mississippi state representative from Pass Christian has called would-be moralists out over their insistence that Katrina was doing God’s bidding: Rep. Jim Simpson of Pass Christian couldn’t believe the e-mails he received from some self-proclaimed Christians this week attempting to lobby
Gambling at the Last Supper? Read More »
gambling & cultureI get people asking me all the time for quantative measures of the “social impact” of gambling. I try to convince them that such a thing is hard to measure. But, if you’re unhampered by standards of academic rigor, it’s easy to make wildly inaccurate claims based on second-hand evidence. Take, for example, this letter
Solid socio-economic research Read More »
gambling & cultureI read an article about the president’s proposed changes to Social Security that got me thinking about the great debate over whether investing in the stock market is or isn’t gambling. Within the past week, I’ve written a draft of the section of Roll the Bones covering several stock bubbles of the 18th and 19th
Gambling or investing in the future? Read More »
gambling & cultureBen Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House, the story of the MIT count team, has sold a lot of copies. But, it seems, it’s not that popular with high school librarians. Still, kids in one Oregon high school will still be free to read the book for an assignment.
Bringing down the school district Read More »
writingWhen I saw the headline Ministers to kill off cuddly gambling bears, I had to read the article. It turns out that prize toys are the latest political football to be kicked around in the British casino debate.
Cuddly bears to go away Read More »
gambling & cultureAs I discuss in my forthcoming book about the Wire Act (the title is still evolving), the current US “prohibition” of online gaming is encountering significant challenges. This article discusses some of them.
Online gaming backlash? Read More »
gambling & cultureGambling has been around for thousands of years, and many religions have at least tolerated it in moderation. Still, many churches offer religious objections to gambling.A recent letter to the editor in the Jamaica Gleaner lays out a Christian pro-gambling argument: CHRISTIAN GREETINGS. It is with great trepidation that I write this letter, asking the question
Bible study (updated) Read More »
gambling & culture