Thought this would be of interest to show how the UK and the US are poles apart when it comes to controlling legislation relating to Poker and Gambling as a whole... Article taken from MSN UK.

When it comes to betting, the British government is taking a giant gamble.

By continuing to liberalise UK gaming laws while other countries tighten up, it is betting that the economic boost of encouraging betting here will outweigh the damage caused to problem gamblers and their families.

Its a big wager, perhaps one appropriate for the countrys first supercasino whose location is due to be announced later today.

Grabbing the economic prizes
The glittering prizes are increased tax revenue, tourism, and urban regeneration. They may turn out to be as tricky to grasp as one of those fairground mechanical grabs which always seem to miss the soft toy. The downside will certainly be a larger number of problem gamblers than the 300,000 we already have, and perhaps some closures amongst rival businesses when the big American casino firms move in.

Is having a flutter the nanny states secret vice? It is certainly an anomaly for a government which increasingly exhorts us to stop smoking, cut down on the booze, and eat more healthily.

Big Brother state and Big Brother betting
As a nation we bet 48 billion in 2005, compared with 7 billion in 1996. These figures, from the tax authorities, do not include the 5 billion that is soaked up by the National Lottery. With new types of betting, whether it be binary betting on shares or text-message betting on who gets thrown out of the Big Brother house, the trend is definitely still upwards.

Figures from Scotland, where the average person spends 1,900 a year on games of chance, show how this figure is typically broken down by type:
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Horse racing and other sports betting - 66.6%</LI>[/list]
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Amusement arcades - 14%</LI>[/list]
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Lottery - 6.6%</LI>[/list]
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Internet gaming - 6.6%</LI>[/list]
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Bingo - 3.4%</LI>[/list]
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Casinos - 2.7%</LI>[/list]
<UL class=parabulletlist> <LI>Pools - 0.1%</LI>[/list]
The tax arguments
Lying behind the governments policy is a strategy designed to avoid losing the tax benefits of gambling. The government reckons that it could lay claim to an extra 3 billion of tax revenue by encouraging the gambling industry to grow here. That is money which would be lost if the betting industry moved offshore, a trend which online gambling has encouraged.

The government had already given the industry a big tax carrot back in 2001 to forestall the first offshore moves. It agreed to drop taxing bets as they were placed, but instead to tax bookmakers and others on their gross profits. This effectively made bets tax-free from the punters perspective and boosted turnover.



Not surprisingly, the value of the British gambling industry has soared. Firms like William Hill (see adjacent five-year share price chart), ladbrokes and Paddy Power have become hot stock market properties. Even outmoded bingo company Rank has been caught up in the excitement.

No roulette unless its Russian
While many see Tony Blair as George Bushs poodle, hes off the White House leash as far as gambling is concerned. Indeed, by regulating and taxing rather than prohibiting and prosecuting, the Blair government is cocking its leg over the policy pursued by the US President, Congress and various state legislatures.

Across the Atlantic, gambling is strictly controlled. Only in Nevada and on certain American Indian-owned land is it completely legal. While there are complex exceptions regarding horse racing and state lotteries, the US essentially believes that its citizens are grown up enough to own guns, but not to gamble.

Zealous campaign
Since the summer the US Justice Department has pursued a zealous campaign against online gambling companies, including British-listed Betonsports and Sportingbet, and latterly against Neteller, one of the companies which helps process the payments that gamblers make to the sites. Executives and former executives of these companies passing through the US have been arrested.

While America is powerful enough to make its law reach beyond its borders, Britain is not. It would rather have the companies here where they can be taxed and regulated, than raking off money from British consumers while beyond the reach of the British taxman and regulators in tax-free havens such as Gibraltar or the Virgin Islands.

Strongly regulated in Europe
In doing so Britain is something of an exception. In most of Europe gambling is a fragmented and restricted activity, heavily regulated and strongly favouring incumbents. Indeed, an EU study of the member states gambling laws in 2006 pretty much foundered on lack of cooperation from all concerned.

Having read this report it seems few countries were keen to see more gambling, especially if it meant new and foreign competitors, and each used various means to justify exemption from EU competition directives

Blame the Kray twins
While the passage of the 2005 Gambling Act in Britain looks like a sea change in official attitudes it is actually only the latest chapter in liberalising the role that betting plays in British public life.

Gambling was at its most restrictive in the late 1960s, when the Wilson government clamped down on the thousands of casinos which had sprung up during the swinging sixties and on the illicit revenue which fuelled gangsters like the Krays.

The number of casinos dropped to 120, hindered by rules which said you had to become a member 24 hours in advance in order to play. However, one-armed bandits and bingo halls were closely controlled, as was the advertising for them.

Privatisation and stagging
Strangely enough, the next big change in public attitudes came with privatisation. The sell-offs of household names like BT and British Gas turned us into a nation of Sids, buying shares in order to sell them for a quick gain. There was even a word coined, stagging, for those who bought and sold within a day. As Warren Buffett once noted, calling such activity investment is as inappropriate as describing the promiscuous as romantics.

Soon afterwards IG Index started spread-betting, an industry which has now grown to allow tax-free betting on a huge variety of financial and sporting outcomes. Then in 1994, the start of the National Lottery revealed the true hypocrisy of the state when it comes to a moral position on gambling.

The lottery was highly inequitable too. While most lottery money came (and still does) from those on low incomes, the beneficiaries in the early days were those at the very top, through projects like the renovation of the Royal Opera House and various art galleries. Since the National Lottery started, two-thirds of the country gamble at least occasionally, according to a study from Nottingham-Trent University.

Not getting the credit
When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he rethought existing restrictions and came up with a radical solution. He would bring in supercasinos like those in Las Vegas, offering fruit machines with 1 million prizes. In early drafts of the Gambling Bill, there were to be up to 40 of these giant Las Vegas-style venues. Now there is to be just one, for the moment. There will also be eight large casinos, and eight small.

Whether its Blackpool, Glasgow, or Greenwich chosen today, the government perhaps cannot be blamed for the ever-increasing availability of gambling, since it started a generation ago.

But unless it makes determined attempts to deal with problem gambling it wont get any credit either.

So maybe we will see more of you Americans moving to these shores to play live and online.
Fingers crossed Blackpool gets the Supercasino but more than likely it will be the London Dome that gets the first license.

crosscourtbh