Re: How Evil Will Google Become?

Neteller is like PayPal in most respects, except that the London-based

> company specializes in processing online gaming payments. Poker sites > such as PokerStars and PartyGaming's Party Poker offer good > examples. And it's a big business -- Neteller processed more than $7.3 > billion U.S. in transactions during 2005. That's a lot of, um, evil.

Here's a tough moral issue.

On the one hand, gambling is very harmful and much of it is illegal for very good reasons. It's very addictive and too many people bet their food and rent money and ruin their families. Lately, many of college kids graduate deeply in debt or get into criminal activity to cover their gambling debts. A common reason of theft by bookkeepers, cashiers, tax collectors, etc. is gambling losses. These losses are huge.

Some years ago gambling was allowed in Atlantic City NJ. All sorts of promises were made of how it would rejuvenate the town, etc. Nothing came about.

On the other hand, gambling is a form of great entertainment for a lot of people. It's a huge business, casinos do well because people like it. If you outlaw it, then the outlaws will take over, that was a big part of the old time mobsters and "rackets". (Of course, handling gambling is pretty tame stuff compared to handling narcotics today.)

What is particularly scary and not discussed is that govt and industry are just as greedy for gambling money as are the players seeking the big win. Government wants the taxes. Towns want the alleged economic development, especially where casinos are proposed in depressed areas. Developers want to build the casino/hotels/playgrounds. These interests can't get on the bandwagon fast enough. This kind of thing I definitely don't like.

If you want to have a casino in some out of the way place or a limited government lottery, ok. Some office football pools or even straight numbers, ok. But I don't want a gambling hall on every corner, and that's what all the interests want to do. Government gets too dependent on gambling tax revenue and ignores its responsibility to keep this stuff from getting out of hand. Obviously, as this article points out, Internet companies want their share.

As to telephones, this has little relevance except that the stereotype of a bookie was very heavy telephone use. Old movies had the bookie with lots of phone lines. The pay phone at the corner drugstore was a bookie connection. Race tracks didn't have pay phones or restricted them. Do we even have bookies today?

In the old days horse racing was a way for legal gambling. In that some skill was involved in handicapping (though luck played a role). Further, races were spaced apart, so it wasn't a constant "action" that the gamblers crave. The gambling today offers high speed "action" and that scares me.

Public replies, please

Reply to
hancock4
Loading thread data ...

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.