| Earlier in the column we cited a personal interest in this story. Here it is. We were visited by two IRS agents and a postal department investigator who are involved in building the argument against Carib. To their credit, they did not come off as Gestapo-like agents. They were cordial, pleasant and inquisitive. The focus of their inquiries was related to financial activity between our publications and Carib Sportsbook. Particularly advertising payments to Players Choice and Players Guide, the magazine we published from 1994 to 2001. We answered all their questions to the best of our ability, noting that Carib generally paid by check. Moreover, although we don't have check stubs, we don't remember ever getting a check from Carib drawn on an American bank. They wanted to know about when we visited Carib and whom we met with. All of our visits to Carib, both on Antigua and in Belize, are well documented in our Sportsbook Scene column coverage of same. We provided the agents with old copies of Players Guide, and a few issues of Players Choice, the tabloid newspaper of which we suspended publication in September but have resumed as a weekly magazine. The investigators asked us who owns Carib, and we responded that we didn't know, since we have never been privy to any official documents which would reveal that info. The impromptu visit did not upset us, or leave a bad taste in our mouth. We realize the folks who questioned us have a job to do. But we did offer the observation that going after Carib seems to be a waste and misuse of government resources. Given an unfriendly world that views America as a blundering giant with a bull's eye painted on the Stars and Stripes, we would rather see agents pursuing terrorists and their ilk. That would be more productive than harassing enterprising Americans who are trying to give our country at least a toehold in a burgeoning industry that promises to get even bigger, with or without U.S. participation. To quantify the size of the offshore gaming market, revenue from online gaming last year exceeded $5 billion, according to published estimates by Bear, Stearns & Co. More than 70 percent of that money was wagered by Americans. The General Accounting Office estimates there are in excess of 1,500 gaming sites in cyberspace. To suggest that our government's bizarre agenda of obsessing over online gaming is utterly cuckoo, is a polite way of saying the inmates are running the asylum. Certainly there is no outcry by the citizenry that this ludicrous waste of time and effort should be in place. When Iraq is safe for our GIs, and the anti-American actions of our adversaries are limited to rhetoric and demonstrations, rather than horrific violence, that might be a more appropriate time to devote resources to dealing with relatively lower priority issues. Our government needs to make a more intelligent and realistic assessment of its enemies. There are forces in today's world with the motivation and resources to destroy the U.S. And they ain't bookmakers! Bah, Humbug. Once again the mainstream press covers a gambling-oriented story and skews it with such doom and gloom, it might have been written by Chicken Little. A story reprinted locally that originated in "The Tennessean" got our attention with this dire warning: "Online Gamblers Face Addiction Risk." Without repeating the story's woefully superficial assumptions and statements, we'll summarize its essence: According to certain critics, gambling in general, and Internet gaming in particular, is potentially very damaging to our nation, especially its youth. Stated one do-gooder who takes exception with point spreads being printed in newspapers, as well as objecting to gaming in cyberspace: "I don't think you are printing the price of hookers or crack cocaine …Maybe papers can at least print a help line too." Equating gambling with prostitution and drug addiction is a shabby but standard technique and tells us more about its practitioners and their agenda than it does about the problems that exist. Make no mistake, we are not wearing blinders. No thinking person would deny that gambling poses real risks, both to individuals as well as society at large. But for arguments sake, let's acknowledge that a minority of drinkers also experience problems. In fact, addiction to everything from sex to fatty foods seems to be a problem for some people. |
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