Your nanny govt in action - DOJ going after banks in internet gambling operation

The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least four Wall Street investment banks as part of a widening investigation into the multibillion-dollar online gambling industry, according to people briefed on the investigation.
...
The subpoenas, earlier reported by The Sunday Times of London, appeared to be part of an indirect but aggressive and far-reaching attack by federal prosecutors on the Internet gambling industry just two weeks before one of its biggest days of the year, the Super Bowl.
Unable to go directly after the casinos, which are based overseas, they have sought to prosecute the operations’ American partners, marketing arms and now, possibly, investors.
The prosecutors may be emboldened by a law signed by President Bush last October that explicitly defined the illegality of running an Internet casino.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/business/22gaming.html?ref=business

So, do they just have such a hard-on for online gambling because they can't tax the winnings? You know they don't actually give a shit about the people losing money.

[quote name='Kayden']So, do they just have such a hard-on for online gambling because they can't tax the winnings? You know they don't actually give a shit about the people losing money.[/quote]

Absolutely, this whole bill is a puritan facade aimed at balancing the placation of the religious right with the interests of B&M casinos and the OTB (which oddly enough is excluded from the bill).

I'm sure the legit American B&M casinos would love to legitimately compete into the online gambling market (as they should), however their efforts in this regard have been blocked by the more theocratic members of our government.

This is an awful bill that tries to take the sting out of lost American corporate revenue (and the tax thereof) from what could be a legitmate and responsibly-run industry by prosecuting any of the rogue "offenders" out of existence. These rogue internet casinos are really just using capitalism to give the people what they want, and isn't that what the forefathers meant when they said we should all have the right to pursue happiness (however we differently may define it)? Having an government that increasingly impinges upon it's citizen's freedoms by enacting archaic, rigid, and draconian legislation over liquor, gambling, copyright infringment and what you can say over "federal" airwaves is a great way to create modern-day Robin Hood mythos around the activities of outlaws and organized crime in general.