Online gambling 101: What the new gambling expansion means for states

Online lotto – and virtual slot machines, blackjack, and poker – could be coming to your state or one near you. The US Department of Justice announced late last year it was reversing its previously held position that all Internet gambling was illegal, clearing the way for a potential boom in online gambling. Proponents call it a windfall for flagging state budgets. Opponents ask, 'At what cost?' Here are answers to five key questions.

1. So, gambling online is legal now?

Photo illustration BY Ann Hermes/staff
A look at an online gambling site hosted in Britain, where such sites are legal.

Not so fast. The Department of Justice's decision itself doesn't automatically give a green light to Internet gambling. Since gambling is regulated at the state level, states must now approach their legislatures if they want to legalize online gambling within the state. It's also important to remember that the DOJ decision doesn't carry the authority of, say, a US Supreme Court ruling, and can be reversed at any time, says Frank Fahrenkopf.

"I don't think that based upon the DOJ decision, states are given an automatic imprimatur," says Mr. Fahrenkopf, chief executive officer of the American Gaming Association, a Washington, D.C.-based casino industry trade group. "The DOJ decision leaves open a lot of questions.… It creates more confusion than clarity."

For example, does the ruling mean states can offer more than lottery tickets to include games like Internet bingo, blackjack, and poker? Must the players and operators be within state lines or can states assemble Powerball-like interstate poker? The DOJ has been asked to specify.

1 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.