Politics has again made for strange bedfellows. This time, the oddly linked
pair is port security and Internet gambling. In the last hours before
Congress adjourned for the midterm election campaign, the long-awaited port
security bill passed both chambers with an anomalous appendage: the Unlawful
Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. If signed by President Bush, the
new law would make it a crime for banks, credit card companies and other
financial institutions to transfer funds for American gamblers to Internet
gambling sites. The impact was almost immediate. Shares of PartyGaming PLC,
which operates the world’s most popular poker site, PartyPoker.com, fell 58
percent on Monday. Shares of Sportingbet, which owns ParadisePoker.com, fell
64 percent. Overall, according to Cox News Service, the plunge wiped off as
much as $7.5 billion in stock value. The legislative maneuver was seen as a
way for congressional Republicans to show they’d done something for the
religious right in a session in which Congress accomplished so little for
almost everyone. “Gambling from your bedroom or living room or dormitory is
not a socially useful activity,” according to a statement from the office of
Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, who pushed the legislation. While accessibility of
online gambling has surely lured its share of gullible gamers, just how
comfortable should we be with government dictating which activities
undertaken in our bedroom, living room or dormitory are “socially useful”?