Currently in britain theres major changes in gambling laws and major and minor casinos being built in certain places round the countries. Theres one being built near us so i was wondering what peoples opinions are on it all.
I find nothing wrong with casinos in general, as long as they're regulated to ensure the games are at least fair, even if the odds are astronomical. It's up to the gambler to know his odds of winning. I think the States should lift their silly bans on casinos. Why just let the Indians have them?
Where there's gambling, there's crime - usually organized crime. It's been shown to be true in a gazillion locales all over the world, so why should Britian be any different? Baron Max
People/cops don't much worry about "the mafia" anymore. Not that it's not still around, it's just taht the mafia is now so entrenched that it can afford to be legitimate businesses instead of resorting to "crime". The worry, actually, is more on the lines of small-time criminals trying to reap big, fast benefits illegally in many areas in and around casinos. Not the least of which is drugs and money-lending. And circling around those operations are even smaller "hyenas of crime" waiting for the scraps! Baron Max
Casinos, ... well, not my cup of tea, but if folks want to gamble, they should be free to. One use for Casinos is to launder money. Some businesses around me obviously don't declare all their revenue, so the proprieters frequent the local Casino, and gamble with the money. Overall, they win a percentage of what they gamble, and none of the individual transactions are accounted for, and it seems to be more profitable than paying tax on the income, and not auditable by Inland Revenue. I'd like to see some notification given to the tax authorities on an individuals spend/win ratio, to sew up this loophole.
Ahh, yes, the "freedom argument". Does the freedom to gamble also include the freedom for a married man with three little kids at home to gamble away the family money ...money that should be used to feed, clothe and house the three little kids and wife? When we talk about freedom, shouldn't we also talk about those whose lives are affected by the use of that freedom? I.e., if the man is free to gamble his money away, is the wife and kids then free to starve to death? Well, that's a crime. If you know that they're doin' that, why haven't you turned them in to the authorities? Baron Max
Sexist attitude you have their Max, that the male has all the money and the wife stays at home to look after the kids. You want to restrict how married people can spend their money now Max? Maybe not let them have money, but send them vouchers for nappies and formula? Like the constitutional right to travel freely? What if said husband instead is always out cruising on his Harley, instead of playing with his kids. You going to take everyone's wheels off them Max? Who said the guy is losing? Oh, just you. That part was covered in my post, Max, because the individual transactions are not recorded (amount of each bet, outcome, and winnings) and the spend and wins overall are not recorded, it's not possible to prove, hence it is used to launder money. You are so keen to pick a fight with me you'll say something stupid in a hurry and embarrass yourself, won't you? Anyway Max, here you are guilty of double standards, you seem to want to restrict one freedom, while you have made it plain you support others. Care to fix this mismatch?
Yes it does. Because as sad as that is, the alternative is so much worse. "You can never do just one thing." Intentions to legislate morality or just responsible behavior are the worst proof of that. When you outlaw something, whether it's drugs, gambling or Holocaust denial, you usually succeed in reducing its occurence but the second-order effects are worse than what you started with. Invariably you create a black market that is unregulated, has no consumer protection, charges rip-off prices, and makes huge profits for organized crime. Or for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who pull in something like $20 billion a year by marketing Afghanistan's opium. Or for the Tehran hotel industry who gets to host the Holocaust Denial Festival and donate the money to the Arms for Hezbollah campaign. Nice sentiment but not one I expected from our resident curmudgeon. When did you become such a bleeding-heart hippie? Aren't those women to blame for not being more sensible in their choice of husbands? Men don't wake up one day and decide to become compulsive gamblers any more than wife-beaters. They were always like that and a woman with her eyes open would know it. Children are always at the mercy of their parents' stupid decisions. More are plunged into poverty by divorce than dissolute fatherly behavior. And even more by the trendy practice of idiotic women having children without a father in the home in the first place.
Oh, no! I wasn't trying to pick a fight at all .....I can say stupid things and embarrass myself without having any ulterior motive at all. You don't read my posts much, do you? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Baron Max
The casinos take away more money from the community than they give back to it. The casinos can say whatever they want about how much they make because most of their take is in cash and therefore cannot be checked by the government. The casinos will give their profits to some company that is many miles away from where it is located so very little ever gets back to where it is. People are fools for the most part and will try to make an easy dollar or two by betting on anything. This becomes a habbit and their incomes become lowered becausethey spend more and more on gambling. Many people become addicts and will rob, steal or murder in order to gamble at the casinos. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Then the same things can be said of all laws and rules. Speeding on the highway is freedom ...other drivers and pedestrians getting killed is better than limiting individual freedoms, huh? Contractors using shoddy materials and workmanship should be free to build bridges and highways ...if people get killed, it's better than limiting the contractor's freedom to make a good profit, huh? People buying explosives and blowing up buildings, ....if thousands of people are killed in the exposions, it's better than limiting the individual freedoms of those who enjoy blowing things up, huh? Laws about making baby formula? Make anything you want, sell it if you can, if a few babies are killed, ...it's better than limiting individual freedoms, huh? ...LOL! Fraggle, any and all laws and rules of a soceity do exactly what you suggest that we shouldn't do! If you take that same argument as you've put forth, then you must also hold to the same argument for all other laws and rules ...yet my guess is that you don't. So ...you're actually only advocating a level or degree of laws and rules. Mine were just different degrees than yours, that's al. Baron Max
Some folks here do not seem to think laws against murder, fraud, robbery, et cetera are essentially the same as laws against gambling, sexual activities, et cetera. If one law is okay, so are the others. it is merely a matter of opinion. A view of laws should be based on some rational criteria. Unfortunately such is not the reality.
Yeah! ...LOL! But "My opinion is better than your opinion!" Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Thanks, Dinosaur, and it's interesting just how many discussions (arguments?) around here are just exactly about such "lines in the sand". I've always found that laws and rules based on protection of the society in general to be much more rational than those that are intended to protect the individual within that society. I.e., only a society has any real need for laws and rules ....an individual living alone in the middle of a big island somewhere has no need of laws and rules. Baron Max
Except that gambling is an addiction, and just like with every addiction, the individual has very little power over it. That's not saying there should not be gambling or casinos, but one should be aware of this part of the issue...
Gambling is not an addiction. Some people can become addicted to gambling, but these are people who have what I've heard called an "addictive personality". If tying their shoes every morning triggered their pleasure centers in the brain, they'd be addicted to that.
But has gambling ever been the downfall of a civilization? (I have no problem with working for my money, but I wouldn't refuse a winning lottery ticket!)
Bingo. I'll make a libertarian out of you yet. One aspect of civilization is its millennia-old exercise in compromise. Of course we can't get along without any rules at all. But the fewer the better. It is still true that "that government governs best that governs least." Be serious. You can't possibly believe that traffic laws are about safety rather than revenue generation. This can and should be an issue of civil responsibility on the part of the contractor and management responsibility on the part of the bureaucrats who let them get away with it. I teach management and if any of my students let a contractor build a bridge or a roadway for their company without having their own staff in key positions to oversee the integrity of the process, I would brand them on the forehead so they would never be allowed to work in management again. It's just common sense. Even if you trust people they can still screw up. All of the shoddy public works you can point to (and the vast majority of them are not in our country) are as much the result of corrupt governments as of corrupt contractors. You'll never catch me within a thousand miles of the Three Gorges Dam, during the fifteen or twenty years before it collapses. I'm just guessing that because you live in the Lone Gun State you're familiar with the argument that outlawing violence is a rather silly and ineffective idea. It only gives the government the right to punish the perps after they've done the deed--if they catch them. The Oklahoma City bomber was a man of no greater than average intelligence or ambition who used prosaic materials any teenager could buy and a simple formula any teenager could google. Laws against the possession and deployment of explosives are useless. People are killed by defective products every day. Manufacturers take great care not to sell dangerous goods because once the deaths hit the news they'll lose their ability to sell anything. Look what happened to the spinach farmers even after the bacteria outbreak was traced to a specific location. Nobody in the country could sell their spinach because no store wanted to carry it. Americans are such utter overreactive imbeciles about risk analysis that we need laws protecting producers, not consumers. Hardly any product is as strictly regulated as medicine, yet it's one of the leading causes of death. Yes. I still believe in the philosophy that that government governs best that governs least. Considering that, at least in our country, the government is the employer of last resort for every misfit, incompetent, lazy, stupid, uneducated or foolish citizen, how can you possibly want that demographic group to be in charge of anything important? I know there are good people in government because I was once one of them, but we were vastly outnumbered and on top of that the system worked against us.
Neither were alcohol, drugs or firearm. Nevertheless we still control their usage. By the way your note on gambling and addiction is mostly semantics. But you got my point... Gambling is a special tax on the mathematically challenged... (which is most people)
Here we agree, which is why I don't gamble. On addiction, sure some people, a very small percentage of customers may be addicts, but they would possibly get addicted something else if gambling were not an option.
