Argentina to Ban Online Gambling?

Recently, the Argentinean province of Buenos Aires was presented with a bill which aims to prohibit all forms of gambling via remote connection, including internet and mobile phone gambling.

If the bill is passed into law, it would mean that all telecommunications operators would have to block access to all sites that offer any form of gambling. Any operator that doesn't block access or tries to circumvent the bill will receive a penalty equal to ten or twenty times the amount of bets received in the region of Buenos Aires.

Deputy Liliana Piani, the politician behind the bill, argued that banning forms of remote gambling is essential so that the state can have full control over gambling activities. Piana was quoted as saying that this was to prevent "certain fundamental values from being endangered," such as "public health, public order and the protection of minors."

She complains the Argentinean government is not doing enough to address the problems associated with such forms of gambling, and she pointed out the issues addressed by her bill had been expressively excluded from all current gaming legislation.

This is essentially another form of the prohibition versus regulation debate. Regulation is where a set of laws exist which attempt to balance the need to protect the public from dangerous or harmful activity against the need for a free flow of legitimate commerce.

Prohibition on the other hand, is where all activities associated with something like gambling are banned and considered a crime. This has the unintended consequence of opening a black market for the activity.

The best example of this is the recent exclusion of Online Casinos like PartyCasino and 888 Casino from the US market. As both companies are publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange, they are subject to heavy regulation and constant monitoring to ensure safe and fair standards for their players. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) effectively forced both companies to withdraw from the US market. Their departure only created a gap in the market for unregulated, unlicensed online gambling operators. The ironic but unsurprising result is that American online gamblers are now less protected than they were prior to the UIGEA being signed into law.

Prohibition of regulated Online Casinos leads to an increase in unregulated and unscrupulous operators looking to fill the gap. The consumer no longer has protection against cheating operators and the games are no longer guaranteed to be fair. You are essentially gambling with the operator, with no safety checks and balances or right of appeal on decisions made.

In stark contrast to the United States, the United Kingdom decided to regulate the online gambling market in Britain. Regulation is the only intelligent and responsible way to ensure that operators behave responsibly. Prohibition simply prevents good companies from doing business, with less-than-ethical competitors not the type to let some legislation get in the way of doing business.

Prohibition didn't stop Americans from drinking during the 1920's and the UIGEA won't stop Americans from gambling online in the next decade. It appears once again that the primary lesson we can learn from history is our infinite capacity to simply make the same mistakes over and over again.

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