Online Gambling Good for Science
"algorithm <algorithm, programming> A detailed sequence of actions to
perform to accomplish some task. Named after an Iranian mathematician,
Al-Khawarizmi.
Technically, an algorithm must reach a result after a finite number of
steps, thus ruling out brute force search methods for certain problems, though
some might claim that brute force search was also a valid (generic) algorithm.
The term is also used loosely for any sequence of actions (which may or may not
terminate).
Paul E. Black's Dictionary of Algorithms, Data Structures, and Problems
(http://www.nist.gov/dads/)."
Random number generators in online casinos are produced by algorithms.
Actually, in internet casinos there are algorithms everywhere. Algorithms decide
who is getting what bonus, they help find fraud, and they run the games.
Mathematicians are typically connected to algorithms.
Chad Hanson is a fourth-year mathematics student and vice chairman of
L.O.G.I.C. (Objectivist philosophy club) at University California Los Angeles
(UCLA). On April 20th the Daily Bruin, UCLA's newspaper, published an article by
Hanson about internet gambling and congress (http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=36786).
Hanson is against banning online gambling, and he has a great analogy
of what banning internet gambling is really like. "Imagine that you go to the
grocery store and pick up a delicious chocolate cake. A government officer tells
you that eating cake is bad for you and will make you fat. You tell him that you
get regular exercise and that eating the cake won't affect your health, and that
he has no business telling you what you can or can't eat, but this falls on deaf
ears because there's a law that bans bad eating habits.
Ridiculous, right? This is exactly what's happening with legal bans on
gambling, such as bans on online gambling proposed by Congressmen Bob Goodlatte
and Jim Leach. I'm a mathematics student, so I'm the first person to tell you
that gambling usually is not a profitable endeavor. But I'm also the first
person to recognize your prerogative to decide what is or isn't a good way to
spend your money."
I agree with Hanson, it isn't the problem of the US government to decide
how and what you can spend your money on. Hanson wrote this article as an
argument against an article written by Jennifer Mishory (staff reporter) and
published on April 11th
(http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?ID=36641). Mishory reports
about the new anti-internet gambling laws being introduced to congress. While
she's just reporting the news I get the idea she's for the bill with her
introductory sentence: "Renewed congressional attempts to ban online gambling
may curtail a pastime that has been increasing among college students in recent
years." Perhaps she thinks that curtailing this pastime would be a bad thing,
but for some reason I doubt it.
Hanson is enraged by this legislation. He feels that the government
thinks its citizens are stupid. "Laws such as the ones discussed in the article
"Congress bills attempt to ban online gambling" (April 11) are exactly the
opposite; they suppose you're too stupid to know when you should or shouldn't
gamble online. All people have the right to choose how to spend their own
money." He goes on to add "All proponents of bans on gambling adhere to one
basic principle: that you are too weak to control yourself, so the government
has to control you. We must stand vehemently against all forms of government
baby-sitting. We are rational adults who can make decisions about gambling for
ourselves." Here's the thing Hanson is forgetting, the US government does think
that its citizens are stupid, this is why the US has the Electrorial College
system
(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/02/electoral.college/). The
US government doesn't even allow us to directly vote for the president, instead
we vote for an elector, who will in turn elect the president. As such I don't
see why he's so surprised or enraged at this latest attempt for the government
to control the decisions of its citizens.
Hanson wants online gambling to remain legal. As I was an internet casino
pit boss in a past life, I think I know why. It was always the math university
students which kicked our asses.
There's even rumored to be a gambling club at Harvard (I don't think its
official) which is made out of math students and has been reported to been
kicked out of casinos in Las Vegas. Math students kick ass at gambling. They
don't just understand the algorithms behind the games; they are the ones writing
them. Of course they make money gambling online. This guys probably making bank
and doesn't want his bank machine to stop spewing money at him. As such he's
taking out all of the stops in his quest for logic. "Supporters of laws limiting
gambling might claim that gambling tempts people to throw away their rent money;
so do big-screen TVs, and yet no one would request laws limiting Best Buy's
right to sell 57-inch plasma screens. They might claim gambling leads to an
increase in crime; so do large banks, since without them there is no vault to
rob. But banning banks in order to reduce crime is unthinkable; the answer is to
punish criminals, not prevent private individuals from possessing property."
Hanson's right to say that spending should be left up to the individual.
He's also right when he gets annoyed by the moral high ground aspect of the
bill. "They might claim that we must protect gambling addicts from themselves.
But the only way for obsessive gamblers like these to learn anything is by
letting them suffer the consequences of their actions; coming home from Vegas to
an empty bank account is a powerful learning tool. But ultimately, no matter how
little they learn, they harm only themselves; it's obscene to limit the
liberties of all men because some don't know what to do with them."
What Hanson doesn't get is this has nothing to do with morality. Very
little in politics really has to do with morality. It has to do with money,
specifically US money leaving the US and going into someone else's pockets.
Internet gambling is off-shore. Lotteries and land based casinos are not.
Internet gambling is taking some of the profit from land based casinos and a lot
of the profit from lotteries. No amount of drama (and his last statement was
seriously dramatic "The one thing we cannot afford to gamble is the freedom to
manage our own lives.") will change the simple truth that this is about money.
Until the US can figure out how to accurately tax online casinos while ensuring
that the internet casinos will not be set up as mafia fronts for cleaning money
online gambling will remain in limbo.
There is some good news for Hanson, the legislation isn't very likely to
pass. His cash cow isn't going anywhere soon.
Posted on: April 24, 2006
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