Quote:
Originally Posted by jackaaron2012
I guess it's just hard for the average Joe to wrap his head around being able to freely exchange money buying (and selling) things on places like eBay and various other parts of the internet, yet the same practice is discouraged heavily if poker is involved. I realize it's a stretch to go from buying/selling to losing/winning money, but regardless, money is being transferred.
Sure, but it's not like States didn't object to other forms of eCommerce when it began, it's just that courts firmly opposed government interference of inter-state/national commerce - with one of the very few exceptions being the allowance that a State's right to regulate gambling (for age restriction and compulsive gambling control, etc) is equally deserving the court's protection as businesses right to market access.
That's where the 'smart' idea to convince courts that poker isn't gambling came from, but since the definition of what is or isn't gambling is determined by the State, that idea clearly wasn't thought all the way through.
If States could have interfered with eCommerce, many of them surely would have, what should be tough to wrap the head around is that there are localities in this and other countries where an adult can't even buy a Playboy magazine, but a ten year old kid can freely download xxx porn because of court protected 'freedom of expression'.
If average Joe really thinks about it, the State government is like a parent and the courts are telling that parent that they have a right to keep gambling out of their 'home', which in my mind makes more sense than some of the areas the courts tell the 'parents' they don't have the right to interfere.
Even harder to comprehend is the decisions some 'parents' like Washington State make; "Go ahead and smoke and grow pot, just don't let me catch you playing online poker!", or Nevada, a State which allows whorehouses and gambling almost everywhere, became the first State to make it crime in 1997 to gamble online.
Perhaps the Constitution should have included a Bad Parenting Clause.