I think that the reason the government has attempted to limit/ban internet casinos is because it is very hard to identify and stop people who are addicted to gambling.
In a land based casino you are watched a tracked fairly closely. If you lose your entire bankroll several times while visiting a casino they may wish to not allow you to gamble there anymore.
I am not sure, but in theory casinos could share this kind of data with eachtoher.
On the other hand it is much less difficult to hide your identity when you have a gambling problem. A person could easily lose much more then they can afford to lose.
I understand that this is essentially protecting you from your self, but it does serve some kind of purpose.
Not according to the Boston University Law Review paper:
http://stockbet.com/#/support/gambling Did you read it?
Here are only some excerpts:
"...gambling and investing are identical activities of wagering...both risk-taking activities have been present in the American culture for all of its history. At some point over 100 years ago, public attitudes of the two types of speculation diverged, with investing being labeled as socially desirable and therefore supported by law, and gambling being labeled as socially undesirable and therefore prohibited by law. This divergence was based not on any logical differences in the activities, but instead on the classes of people that participated in these activities and who profited from them. Stock brokers, stock exchanges, and their wealthy clients benefited from this legal distinction; working class gamblers and bookmakers did not."
"...federal government should prohibit, regulate, leave alone, or encourage speculative [gambling] activities based on the utility of the enterprise and the corresponding social cost of that activity, not on whether the lure of the activity can be harnessed for government gain."
"Although morality myths prevail in anti-gambling rhetoric, the abundance of legalized gambling activity in almost all states weakens the authority of those myths as governmental policy."
"...government's incongruous position with respect to online investing, in which its stated concerns for reckless retail investors are quite muted, and online gambling, in which its stated concerns for reckless gamblers are passionate and inconsistent with current policy."
Way more people can lose WAY MORE to stocks and houses than they do to online gambling. If the government is truly concerned about problem gambling, they should ban stocks and investment properties. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's article: "Flip This House": Investor Speculation and the Housing Bubble: "At the peak of the boom in 2006, over a third of all U.S. home purchase lending was made to people who already owned at least one house."
Millions of Americans lost their life savings to houses or more as many of them still have negative net worth.
Here are more excerpts:
"...government's stance against Internet gambling is misguided, its arguments for prohibition are pretextual, and its myopia on this topic is damaging its credibility in the international arena."
"Any attempt to substantively distinguish all types of gambling (from slot machines to poker to sports betting) from all types of investing (from long term ownership to day trading to purchasing derivatives) is illusory."
"...gambling and investing are identical activities of wagering...both risk-taking activities have been present in the American culture for all of its history. At some point over 100 years ago, public attitudes of the two types of speculation diverged, with investing being labeled as socially desirable and therefore supported by law, and gambling being labeled as socially undesirable and therefore prohibited by law. This divergence was based not on any logical differences in the activities, but instead on the classes of people that participated in these activities and who profited from them. Stock brokers, stock exchanges, and their wealthy clients benefited from this legal distinction; working class gamblers and bookmakers did not.
The decision to prohibit an activity should be based on a sound analysis of its costs and benefits, including whether any important freedoms are associated with that activity. Similar activities should be regulated similarly, without regard to traditional labels, pretextual and inconsistent morality arguments, or discriminatory categorizations based on class."
The lower class is discriminated against and have less freedom. Democracy is a myth. Free open markets is a myth. The rich and powerful in the one percent shapes the laws.
Here are more excerpts:
"Although...governments have allowed many types of gambling in the past thirty years, the recent backlash against Internet gambling demonstrates that this liberalization did not reflect a new commitment to regulating gambling similarly to other...identical activities. Instead, gambling liberalization reflects a commitment to legalize gambling that is financially lucrative to state and federal governments. Internet gambling is not profitable to these regulators, and so it has not been legalized. Moreover, to argue that online gambling should not be permitted, regulators have renewed moralistic arguments without acknowledging that these arguments apply equally against the traditional gambling activities that they have voted to legalize.
Notably, although online investing has the same potential for negative externalities as online gambling, online investing has been accepted and even embraced as the newest manner for investing, whether rationally or irrationally, in the capital markets. Predicated upon the notion that online activities should not be regulated differently than physical activities merely because they are performed on the Internet, the SEC has chosen not to restrict online investing. Analogously, the federal government should allow states to regulate online gambling in the same way that those states choose to regulate similar physical gambling activities."
Furthermore, the international community has essentially called the US government hypocritical:
E.U. Online Gambling Operators File Complaint Against U.S. for Discriminatory Practices:
"After the W.T.O. ruled that the U.S. had violated trade rules in barring Antiguan online gaming operators from the U.S. market, the U.S. withdrew its W.T.O. obligations with regard to free trade in the gambling area. Earlier this week, the European Union and several other countries, including Japan, Canada, and Australia, agreed to accept compensation from the U.S. for the withdrawal of market access." "It is time for the U.S. to end its hypocritical practices that discriminate against foreign online gambling operators, while allowing U.S. gambling operators to accept bets for certain forms of gambling.""
EU Commission concludes investigation on US internet gambling laws:
"…US laws on remote gambling and their enforcement against EU companies constitute an obstacle to trade that is inconsistent with WTO rules."
"EU...: "It is for the US to decide how best to regulate Internet gambling in its market, but this must be done in a way that fully respects WTO obligations. I am hopeful that we can find a swift, negotiated solution to this issue.""
EU tells the US to allow online gambling:
"EU says it might seek compensation from the World Trade Organisation"
Antigua demands trade sanctions [against U.S.]:
"Antigua has asked the WTO to impose sanctions on the United States for ignoring a ruling that it has breached trade rules by effectively banning online gambling."
"The government of the island nation said it was seeking compensation from the World Trade organisation worth US$3.4 billion a year."