Author: Kyle Schafer
Date: April 20, 2006
Gambling and the Law: I Bet it Rules!
For thousands of years, gambling has had a significant presence in many great societies. Archaeologists have even recovered gambling artifacts from ancient China that date back to the 2300s B.C.E. Even before that, a serpent bet Eve three fig leaves that she wouldn’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For many millennia, the idea of striking it rich, without having to put in hard work, on a game of chance has captivated the thoughts of millions–from the professional poker players seen on TV, such as Daniel Negreanu and Johnny Chan, and many Las Vegas pro gamblers, all the way down to your Grandmother, my Grandmother, and everyone’s Grandmother! Also, for those thousands of years while people were trying to make it rich, there have been legislators trying to keep people from committing their funds to games of chance. Even God came down on Adam and Eve with an iron fist, after that fruit wager. These laws that have been on the books (some for well over a century) are sometimes draconian, silly, out-of-date, and too strict. These laws are all state laws, so an infraction that is completely legal in one state may be punishable with up to ten years in prison in another (Ciaffone). That is quite a difference in punishment. Furthermore, gambling is more nuanced than playing in a casino. What is to be said of gambling in a social game at a friend’s house, or a charity event? In the past five years, online gambling, particularly poker, has exploded into a flood of new gamblers. This would not be so much of a problem if popular online cardrooms, such as PartyPoker.com, PokerStars.com, etc. were located and run inside the United States. On top of all of this mess, one still has to factor in what “gambling” exactly is. It is of the author’s opinion that gambling is a game where the outcome is a direct result of luck, and luck alone. In other words, gambling is any game of pure chance, such as roulette or craps. A game of skill, however, is different from a game of chance. A game of skill is one where skill can be implemented to attain an advantage over the competition, such as chess, backgammon, or poker. It must be noted, though, that the latter two can be dominated in the short term by luck, but are dominated in the long term by skill. So, to tie all of this together into one statement, gambling laws in the United States must be revised, updated and/or overhauled and made standardized, nationally to protect those who partake in social gambling.
