CONGRESSMAN BOB GOODLATTE'S WEEKLY COLUMN:

SEPTEMBER 18, 1997

Imagine coming home from work one day, only to find that your children have "borrowed" the family credit card, logged on to the home computer, and lost this month's mortgage payment in a game of cyber-roulette. Internet gambling, which encourages addicts and sparks the interest of children, allows this scenario to occur in every home in America.

Gambling is illegal unless regulated by the states. States decide what type if any gambling is allowed within their borders. With the development of the Internet, however, this situation has been turned on its head. No longer do people have to leave the comfort of their homes and make the affirmative decision to travel to a casino -- they can access the casino from their living rooms. The Internet is a revolutionary tool that dramatically affects the way we communicate, conduct business, and access information. As it knows no boundaries, the Internet is accessed by folks in rural and urban areas alike, in large countries as well as small. The Internet is currently expanding by leaps and bounds; however, it has not yet come close to reaching its true potential as a medium for commerce and communication.

One of the main reasons that the Internet has not reached this potential is that many folks view it as a wild technological frontier, with no safeguards to protect children and no legal infrastructure to prevent criminal activity online. The ability of the World Wide Web to penetrate every home and community across the globe has both positive and negative implications. While it is an invaluable source of information and means of communication, it can also override community values and standards. In short, the Internet is a challenge to the sovereignty of civilized communities, states, and nations.

The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, protects the rights of citizens in each state to decide through their state legislatures if they want to allow gambling within their borders. The ability to prohibit or regulate gambling should not be taken away from the states by off-shore, fly-by-night operators.

This legislation does not preempt any state laws, does not cover online news reporting about gambling, and does not apply to transactions that are legal in both the state in which they originate and the state in which they are received. The bill simply brings the current prohibition against interstate gambling up to speed with the development of new technology, as the Internet had not been created when the original law was passed and thus is not covered by it.

Online gambling is currently a $200 million per year business, and could easily grow to a billion dollar business in the next few years. The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, will help stop Internet gambling before it gets any further out of control.

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