As Goes Our Nanny State
We sat down to write something about congress's attack on internet gambling and the parallels to Washington state's recent anti-online poker legislation, but a few quick Google searches that started out as "research" morphed into an hour of Texas Hold 'Em. An hour, it turns out, is exactly as long as it takes a complete idiot to lose $1000 of play money at a poker table.
Congress's bill doesn't explicitly prohibit online gambling like our state's law does. Rather it focuses on funding online gambling. HR 4411 is named the "Internet Gambling Bill" but it is "To prevent the use of certain payment instruments, credit cards, and fund transfers for unlawful Internet gambling, and for other purposes." Of course, immediately upon the bill's signing internet casino stocks tanked and a lot of them flat out quit.
It's a little disheartening to think about the fact that our state is way ahead of the curve on the implementation of the nanny state, but imagine how such measurement-based Washington legal innovations as the 25' rule and the 4' rule will be received around the country. They're going to love us.
