A Reponse To Jay Greenspan on Underage Gambling

Jay Greenspan has an interesting post that I submitted a drunken reply to that didn’t really completely make my case for why I think that Jay is technically correct but focusing on the wrong issues as it pertains to the UIGEA. Jay says:

Another problem with outrage is that it keeps you from addressing the portions of your opponent’s argument that may be reasonable. For the dozen of you who read this blog, I’d ask you that you put aside your outrage for a moment and address a question that, to my mind, hasn’t gotten a proper response:

Opponents of Internet gaming site underage gambling as one of the great dangers of the activity. What’s our response?

And Jay is right in terms of addressing the concerns of those who view underage gambling as a problem. In fact, I have a problem with underage gambling. I don’t think minors should be gambling. So I actually agree with the position.

However the point I tried to make to Jay, and failed poorly at, was that underage gambling is relative. In the US underage can be defined anywhere from 18 - 21 years of age. But online poker sites cater to a worldwide audience. I live in a country where you can smoke, drink, and have sex at 16 (except anal sex which you have to be 18 to engage in - Google rocks for random fact research!). I assume the same age applies for gambling. So, in theory, a poker site could still be acting responsibly and allow 16 year olds to gamble.

And while that option exists, most sites have voluntarily set a higher standard. Stars, Party, and Full Tilt, the three largest online poker rooms, all follow the 18 and over rule. Full Tilt used to set the bar at 21 but I assume recently lowered it. Party and Stars participate voluntarily with GamCare, the UK’s responsible gaming organization. And most of the larger sites not only meet the minimum requirements for providing responsible gaming but clearly exceed them.

So, that is our response, Jay. Our response is that in the absence of any clear and solid direction the industry self-imposed responsible gaming rules on itself. If the US government wants to set even higher standards the gaming industry would bend over backwards to comply with them. But the problem is - and this is where Jay start to see differently - the US isn’t interested putting forth a set of standards for online gaming sites to meet. It’s far easier for a fear mongering politician to paint the worst case scenario of embryos logging onto PartyPoker and being hundreds of thousands in debt before they’ve even been born.

So while I agree wholeheartedly that we need to do a better job of articulating our message so as to take some of the wind out of our opponent’s sails, it’s not necessarily an issue of being more responsible.

Jay also has this to say:

Clearly, the online sites are doing nothing to prevent underage players from logging in. Jimmy Fricke, at all of 19, played his way into Aussie Millions and took second while wearing PokerStars gear. Each year a new crop of just-legal, super-talented 21-yearl-olds descend on the WSOP having tremendous experience from thousands of hours of online play. Full Tilt signed Jeff Madsen who everyone knows was playing a lot of hours before his 21st birthday.

Again, the problem here is Jay has declared the legal age of gambling to be 21. If the age were 18, what would be the problem with anything he’s said above? And if the US government or each individual state wanted to make the legal age 21 then I would expect online gaming sites to change their minimum age requirements for US players. But without any sort of guidance the online gaming industry has simply tailored their standards to those that most of the rest of the world sees as being responsible.

To raise the legal gambling age to 21 without any sort of guidance simply sets precedence for the legal age to be 21 if/when it becomes legal. The UK seems to think 18 is fine. Many countries think 18 is fine. Online gaming would simply like the opportunity to ask if 18 is an appropriate age in the US. But with nobody in the US government willing to even entertain the idea of online gambling then the debate over age is really only academic.

And again, this is where Jay and I sort of go down different paths.

So what do we say when some politician proclaims that underage gambling is destructive? Do we flat-out disagree and say that it’s not a problem at all? Do we say that it’s a necessary evil—that in maintaining an adult liberty this spill-over is unavoidable? Do we say that it’s a work in progress—that we haven’t yet figured out how to address it but will in the not-too-distant future? If this is the answer, what of Fricke and Madsen, et al.

The answer is that we could raise the age to 21 overnight if the government wants to set that policy. Literally it’s probably no more than a one line code change for many sites. And if the industry had the cooperation of the US government they could enact even stricter checks. Right now, because the government has taken the scorched earth approach, online gaming sites have to operate at arms length from the US. Many companies and government agencies that could supply data that would allow stricter controls won’t touch online gaming with a ten foot pole.

So if the concern really is about underage gambling the US government has taken an approach that all but guarantees that underage gambling will continue to be a problem. Instead of bringing it onshore where it can tax, regulate, and enforce laws against it, the government has pushed it offshore out of its control.

Jay and I really diverge on what this actually means. I believe that it makes the battle cry of people like Frist hollow. They don’t give a shit about underage gambling. They’re playing up to people who think all gambling is bad. Trotting out the concern for youths is a way to make their idiocy sell a little better to sane people who might otherwise object to the government sticking its nose into people’s lives in such a way.

Way, way back in the early days of the Internet Congress was up in arms over pornography. There were wild cries from the Capitol that they were going to round up every single site operator and put them all in jail because … get this … people under 18 could view pornography online. The thinking was that even if a site has a little thingamakabob that asked if you were over 18 that wasn’t doing enough. Fortunately Congress ran into that thing called the First Amendment and several failed attempts at censoring pornography offline so it did more threatening than anything else. What they were trying to do was shut down pornography on the Internet altogether but they attempted to use the fear of children viewing pornography as their in to passing legislation that normally wouldn’t pass the constitutionality sniff test. Well unfortunately for Congress a young man who I went to high school with came up with bright idea of accepting all legal responsibility for ensuring that a person was actually 18 years old. He basically went to every major porn site and told them that if people signed up via his site he would guarantee that they were 18. Of course every porn site around signed up and my friend became a multi-multi-multi-millionaire. Congress even summoned him to speak during hearings on the online pornography industry and solicit his input on what real effects certain legislation would have on the industry.

Today there’s more porn on the internet than ever before. Few sites do more to check that you’re 18 than verify that you have a credit card (since minors aren’t supposed to have credit cards). Congress gave up because once their attempts at completely banning online pornography were scuttled by someone willing to swipe that excuse away from them they sort of forgot about the kiddies.

And I believe we face a similar situation today. Our opponents only care about kids because it helps remove the stench of what their real agenda is. They want to shut down the whole online gaming industry. When this legislation was originally being shopped around it was wittily summed up as “click the mouse, lose your house.” How many minors own homes?

When you dig past all of the posturing there are a good chunk of people who feel that all gamblers are destined to become degenerate gamblers. Underage gambling is their vehicle to get legislation passed that would never stand a chance on its own. The online gaming industry could raise the age requirements to 21 tomorrow and it’s still not going to address the concerns of those who think that all gambling is evil.

In many ways this situation also reminds of of the crusade against drunk driving. While most sane people would agree that driving while intoxicated is dangerous and irresponsible, anti-drinking zealots have used drunk driving scare tactics to pass increasingly oppressive laws. The founder of Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has quit in disgust as the organization she founded to stop traffic accidents involving alcohol has evolved into an organization obsessed with criminalizing all drinking.

The founder of MADD, Candy Lightner, believes it is moving in the wrong direction. “It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned,” said MADD’s founder. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”

It may appear that I’ve gone off on a tangent here but I see a similarity in how a just cause is used to push an unjust agenda. If underage gambling was a major concern of those pushing for legislation they would have actually done something to stop underage gambling via the horse racing and lottery carve outs. An organization like MADD can get away with almost anything because to oppose them means that you must be in favor of drunk driving. Likewise people are trying to paint the online gaming question about underage gambling. If you support online gaming you obviously think it’s okay for children to rack up huge amounts of debt gambling online.

Jay says we should spend our time addressing these issues. I say we already are. We can fight against the UIGEA based on its absurdity while at the same time trying to become a more responsible industry. Refuting false arguments only gives them credibility. If we, as an industry and players, start falling all over ourselves to respond to these concerns then we give our opponents the ammo they need to say that our efforts just go to prove that there was cause for concern.

What we need to do is say “We’ve implemented safeguards that to the best of our ability ensure a safe and responsible gaming experience. We’ve met and exceeded every responsible gaming requirement put forth by countries like the United Kingdom that recognize online gaming as a legitimate form of entertainment. Currently most countries recognize 18 year olds as being old enough to participate in gaming responsibly and so that’s the minimum age we enforce. And we’ve never had any sort of problem with major incidents of underage gambling in those countries. Obviously we understand that each country sets it’s own age of majority and our systems are capable of restricting customers by age on a country by country and state by state basis. We would welcome any laws or regulations that the US or state governments should offer because our intent is to protect both the integrity of the gaming experience as well as to ensure that, that gaming experience is provided in a responsible manner to responsible adults.”