Why is gambling so restricted in the USA?

I was just reading this article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13121768

and it struck me that it's the 21st century, and the USA is allegedly 'Land of the Free', so why can't adults choose to gamble?

The laws seem to be a complicated mix of federal and state prohibitions and exemptions, with the UIGEA being an anachronistic attempt to enforce old morality in new circumstances.

Personally, I don't gamble, and looking at the assorted losers that frequent the local betting shop I'm no way near the demographic that do, but I think it's a matter of choice, so why is the USA so fragmented on the matter?

 

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There's gotta be over a thousand casinos in America plus meccas like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. You're asking why casinos aren't as numerous as ATM machines?

 

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Nope, I'm asking why there are federal and state laws banning gambling, why gambling over the Internet was banned, why there are exemptions, why you can't even play poker for money amongst friends in some states, and generally, why there's such negative legislation.

 

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as far as i can tell it's a morality agenda, religious primarily. a lot of people protest they don't want that kind of influence in their towns or neighborhoods. same thing with strip clubs too i think. our liquor laws seem to be tied to it too. there are dry counties where you can't buy alcoholic beverages, and even where you can there's all these nonsensical restrictions on sundays.

 

Because it would put all of the bookies out of work and those people who have small time gambling games in their homes, offices or other businesses.

 

We used to have nonsensical alcohol purchase laws, .. but rather than being religion based they were emergency laws passed in wartime, plus some protectionist nonsense favouring pubs.

I don't see why religion, in particular Christianity, would have a downer on alcohol or gambling. There is biblical precedent that God and Jesus approved of each activity, God commanded people to make decisions based on drawing lots, and selected Noah to live, and he planted grape vines, made wine, and got drunk to celebrate his deliverance, and Jesus turned water into wine allegedly (although I think this is more of a euphemism about not embarrassing hosts by demanding more wine, and drinking water instead).

It seems more to me to be a product of the Puritan lifestyle, rather than mandated by Christianity per se.

 

Which only exist because of the legislation. And you wouldn't make the argument that you keep narcotics illegal so drug dealers keep their jobs.

 

well we do have some amish people and quakers here and there, but they're protestants too. it's the protestants. catholics love to gamble and drink and they have great church festivals in the summer where people do just that.

 

you might. the war on drugs is big business. everybody's on the payroll.

 

Because Americans are prudish and puritanical. Many of us expect our government to--in confusing opposition to our often times libertarian nature--enforce this twisted morality.

It's strange and utterly stupid.

~String

 

That is true. And you have the infuence of money on legislative bodies at work too. Certian parties do not want competitors in their markets, so they use government to create restrictions giving certian special interests monoploy power.

 

What's unusual is the lack of consistency in the laws. Here in Texas, paramutual betting is permitted (horse and dog racing), but casinos are not. I guess betting on a horse is less evil than playing poker. We also have a state-run lottery, which is also a form of gambling.

 

Gambling follows the laws of chance. This orientation for thought processing is the opposite of logical thinking, which is based on casual determinism. Instead of rituals to the gods of cards, you use will power and reason.

With gambling we leave the world of cause and effect and enter the imaginary world where some random event can generate an ideal outcome. There is no will power or logic in that. The church wanted people to move in the direction of the age of reason and away from the fickle gods of dice and cards.

It is hard to tell people to be careful with gambling, when science also uses gambling to do research. Rather than use will and logic to make prediction before experiments, you let the phenomena deal the cards. One will then hope for a good hand or a good bluff.

Global warming was a good bluff using science cards. But someone called the bluff, even though the bluffinh side had all the chips. Having a bigger pile of chips allows extra bluffing skills in the world of science gambling methods. It does work at times, since there are big winners this way. This is harder to do with logical models since cause and effect is not dependent on having a pile of chips to play.

 

I think that is where the special interest money comes into play. People in Nevada or on Indian reservations don't want additional competition.

 

It's a Legacy of old laws based upon religion combined with states not wanting competition for the cash cow state run lotteries.

 

I see your point but whereas gambling isn't a life threatening type of activity and doing hard core drugs is then I'd have to say there's a difference in the way they each should be dealt with. Usually you need money to buy the drugs or you won't be able to get anything but gambling you could use a credit card or IOU instead and thereby be able to gamble away your earnings and future earnings as well. But the main point is that drugs will cause more harm to yourself and your surrounding friends then gambling will to an extent.

 

Love to see your prove that. Gambling adicts have been known to have lost every $ there families have, steal money they could get there hands on (bank tellers and investment bankers for instance), get involved in organised crime and commit suicide. So how is this a "lesser harm" than drug adiction?

 

That's why I said,

so they both destroy peoples lives but one does it worse than the other. I also said that ,

, as well which meant that he was correct.

 

Gambling, like narcotics has had many bad effects on society. So, like drugs for getting high, casinos should be discouraged.

 

I haven't been everywhere in the USA, but it's my experience that it's pretty difficult to find any place that is more than a 1 hour drive from all of the legal gambling one could want to do. Maybe like way out in rural Montana or the Dakotas or something? Deep in the Alaskan wilderness? Hawaii?

Isn't that approximately how federalism is supposed to work, especially in a large and diverse country?