When I read the headline in The Dartmouth on May 19 ("Police consider pressing online gambling charges"), I was shocked at the ignorance displayed by the Hanover Police Department. There is a not a single state in this country that has a specific law against playing online poker for money, and for good reasons.
First, although gambling may be a misdemeanor in New Hampshire, poker should not be categorized in the same way as other "games of chance." Such a view is already codified in those states, such as California, that have legal card-rooms even though other forms of gambling are prohibited. The reasoning behind such policies is that card games are primarily games of skill, not chance, in which there are no odds stacked against the participants. Rather, the card-room makes money by essentially taxing every hand that is played (known as a "rake"), while the participants compete only against one another. Because poker and other card games are games of skill, and not chance, they should not be classified as "gambling" in the usual sense of the word, because the outcome of the game does not depend on blind luck.
A second, more compelling reason that online gambling has not been made illegal anywhere in the country is that the actual monetary transactions associated with online gambling take place in countries where gambling is not illegal, such as Canada. There are no grounds for prosecuting an activity if the activity does not take place in a country where it is illegal. Although people may participate in gambling activities indirectly from New Hampshire, the actual gambling occurs on servers in other countries.
Besides these legal reasons why online gambling should not be prosecuted at Dartmouth, or anywhere, there are also practical reasons why such a policy would be a bad idea. If Hanover police really have no better crimes to investigate than a bunch of kids playing games online for money (which the police don't even know is actually a crime), then the police should be thankful and stop looking for students to bust on questionable grounds. If life is that slow for them, then I suggest they go cruising up and down Webster Avenue every night, picking up every underage drinker they find. That would provide an infinitely greater public service than fining people who pay for some online entertainment. Alcohol is physically addictive, while gambling is not. People under the influence of alcohol may be more likely to commit sexual assault, vandalism or other crimes, while online gamblers are not. There are many reasons why drinking is a bigger problem than online gambling, and yet the Hanover police are considering cracking down on gambling. This is absurd.
Why go through the trouble of tracking IP addresses and invading people's privacy when they could just pick up random drunk kids off frat row? What about the copyright infringement that occurs over Direct Connect? What about the rapes, the robberies and the drunken assaults that occur on campus? If online gambling is the biggest threat to campus safety right now, then the Hanover police have got it easy. The article on May 19 proposed that gambling addicts can become dangerous, committing crimes such as theft and credit card fraud. Maybe. But not all online gamblers are addicted, and there are already laws in place for dealing with theft and credit card fraud. There is no need to make online gambling itself an issue. Those of us who gamble online are just looking for some entertainment. We're not all addicted, and there are numerous other issues on campus and in town that are of much greater importance than some kids playing games for money.
An anecdote should prove my point: There's a guy known as "Honest Abe" on campus, and he plays poker. He once called a huge bluff with nothing but a pair of deuces, winning a huge pot and earning the respect and admiration of everyone present. Poker had honed his analytical and critical thinking skills until they were as sharp as tacks, and I wish that more people on campus could demonstrate similar analytical skills. "Honest Abe" shouldn't be thrown in jail, he should be held up as an example for others to emulate. We poker players just want to be left alone.
