Testify!
2007-11-14 09:04:33
By:
Gene Bromberg
UltimateBet's Annie Duke will be testifying today at a Congressional hearing at 10am ET. This morning's hearing features Congresspeople on both sides of the online gaming issue, a prosecutor from the Department of Justice, an expert on dispute resolution through the World Trade Organization, a Treasury Department advisor, a gentleman from the Family Research Council, and an executive from a company that provides technical solutions to preventing underage people from gambling online. And Annie.
It should make for an interesting meeting (even with the thrilling title of "Hearing on Establishing Consistent Enforcement Policies in the Context of Online Wagering") and you can
watch it live through the streaming video provided by the Judiciary Committee website. Maybe we'll get lucky and Annie and the speaker from the Family Research Council will be locked in a room for an hour of debate. Nah, that would be a pay-per-view event.
UPDATE: Listening to Rep. Bob Goodlatte's testimony (a trial in and of itself), the Congressman said that the son of one of his consitutuents committed suicide because of a debt he ran up gambling online, and that "...unfortunately, financial ruin and tragedy are not uncommon among online bettors. We're all familiar with the Lehigh university student body president who last year arrested for armed robbery to pay an internet gambling debt".
Apparently Rep. Goodlatte isn't that familiar with the story. First of all, Greg Hogan (the Lehigh student who was convicted of armed robbery last year) did not commit his crime to pay an "internet gambling debt". Goodlatte is trying to make it look like Hogan was desperate because some online site was either dunning or threatening him. Thing is, no online site that I know of loans money to players. Hogan apparently lost some money online and then borrowed some cash from his fraternity brothers, but the prosecutors in the case
rejected Hogan's claim that he committed the robbery to pay that debt:
"Prosecutors scoffed at Hogan's claim that he committed the robbery because he was desperate, noting that he owed his fraternity brothers only a few hundred dollars and that those were not gambling debts."
Goodlatte (and other anti-gaming spokespeople) have pushed Hogan as a kind of poster child of how gambling preys on the innocent. Hogan was the son of a Baptist minister, a class president...he played the
cello, for cryin' out loud. There MUST be a reason why such an upstanding young man committed such a terrible crime. Aha! He became a slave to internet gambling! That's the reason why he robbed a bank! Indeed, Hogan used his alleged gambling problem as a reason why he should be granted leniency:
"I feel I deserve a second chance ... because I can spread awareness about compulsive gambling," said Hogan, who attends Gamblers Anonymous meetings and meets with a therapist.
The prosecutors didn't buy it, and neither did the judge:
"There's been much said about Greg Hogan, (about) who he is and what he's done with his life," said First Assistant District Attorney Maria Dantos. "There's been very little attention paid to the fact that people who work in a bank have this as a daily threat. ... The fact that Greg Hogan played the cello is of little import."
And,
As he sentenced Hogan, (Lehigh County President Judge William) Platt noted that addicts come into his courtroom every day who do not have the advantages in life that Hogan did. He said the seriousness of the crime warranted prison.
The judge recommended that Hogan serve his sentence at the state prison at Pine Grove, a maximum security prison for youthful offenders.
This is not to say that gambling addiction doesn't exist, nor that it isn't a serious problem for those who suffer from it. But it is blatantly false for Rep. Goodlatte to say "unfortunately, financial ruin and tragedy are not uncommon among online bettors". And it's especially telling that the example he uses to illustrate his point (a case that he says "we're all familiar with") does not in fact support his argument.
I'm gonna put my hip boots back on and wade through more of the testimony.
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