How Freedom Dies: Internet Poker

Robert Arthur is the author of an unusual and fascinating book called You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos. He also has a blog called Narco Polo that he posts to very infrequently. His single panel comics are like a Ripley's Believe it or Not of human folly.

Hypocrisy:
In 2010 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the same town of Hogan Jr.’s robbery, a woman was charged with stealing $68,500 from her employer “to fuel her addiction to scratch-off lottery tickets.” There was no response by Congress to outlaw state-run lotteries. Note: The amount of money online poker sites take from players (the rake) is usually around 1-5% of the money played. The amount of money state-run lotteries took from players in 2006 was 35% of the money played.

Costly Hypocrisy:
America’s hypocrisy of allowing domestic online lotteries and horse betting, but not allowing foreign poker sites was found by the World Trade Organization to be in violation of its international trade agreements. Because of this the US had to settle complaints by Japan, Europe, and Canada. The settlements were not made public on the ridiculous basis of “national security interests,” but they are believed to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

How Freedom Dies: Internet Poker

How Freedom Dies: Internet Poker

Backlink: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/C5YfWZ7r4X4/how-freedom-dies-internet-poker.html