Does the government have the right to prohibit private gambling?

I can understand why some people wouldn’t want casinos in their state, and I understand why some folks think state lotteries aren’t such a hot idea either.

What I do not understand is why the government would feel compelled to make it illegal to get together with your friends and start a betting pool or play poker for money. What business is it of theirs? If you ask me, governments have as much right to prohibit this sort of thing as they have to prohibit sodomy between consenting adults.

What you really meant to ask was whether governments should have the right to prohibit private gambling, right? Because it’s pretty darn obvious that they have such power.

I think a better comparison might be to prostitution. I personally don’t think the government should have the right to prohibit prostitution, gambling, sodomy, drugs, alcohol, or a whole bunch of other things.

On the other hand, if legal gambling was more widespread, the governments of the various states couldn’t have such profitable lotteries, as market forces would pretty much put them out of business. As far as gambling goes, state-run lotteries have about the worst expected values, and would thus be the first targets for competition, were it legal.

Is private gambling in your own home illegal in the U.S.? It sure isn’t in Canada. It’s when you open up gambling halls to the public that the government gets in the way.

No, the government should have no right to stop people from gambling, either privately or publically. Whatever moral or social excuses they had for doing so was forfeited the first time a state government opened up a lottery or a state-controlled casino.

Here in Alberta, the government controls all public gambling. For a long time, there were no casinos at all in Alberta, and at that time we heard all kinds of speeches about how destructive gambling was to the community, and how immoral it was.

Then the government discovered that gambling was lucrative. So they starting putting Video Lottery terminals in every bar so you didn’t even have to go to a casino to gamble. And the odds they offer Albertans are worse than what you could get from an organized crime gambling racket, and about twice as bad as the average in Las Vegas. And now our province generates over 1 billion dollars a year from gambling, which is more than we collect from income tax.

Yet a friend of mine was arrested and charged with ‘keeping a common gaming house’ for setting up a private poker club that the members ran by themselves. Because it had a business license, the government decided it was ‘public’, and now he’s a criminal. In the meantime, the government continues to rake it in.

The hypocrisy of government with respect to gambling is sickening.

First of all I will assume a U.S. setting…

The state’s rationale is that if you openly allow “private” gambling – an office football pool, friends getting together for poker night – that may be a “back door” for the establishment of a larger-scale unregulated gambling activity. Now, from the POV of the state, gambling, like liquor, has the potential for (a) causing a high degree of social and economic harm to individuals and families if not kept under control, and (b) ***moving large amounts of money that the State wants to tax ***.

It is left as an exercise for the student to determine which is the state’s priority.

Either way the usual answer from governments for those forms of “amusement” is, either ONLY allow it when government-regulated and taxed, or not at all.

BTW neither of those above seems to be a major problem with consenting-adult non-commercial sodomy. That is government just deciding to ban something on no other grounds than that it’s “contra natura” i.e. “sin”. But that goes hand in hand with another problem gambling in the U.S., which is the same puritanical tradition that gave us Prohibition, and views any and all adult nonproductive pleasure as “vice”.

Now, simple, casual, small-stakes gambling among friends and neighbors (e.g. poker night with the boys every other Thursday, only a couple hundred bucks change hands) may be allowed in some jurisdictions – or at least the authorities will feel they have larger fish to fry. But organize a club, with membership, and you’ll run afoul of the law as Sam’s friend found out (BTW, sorry, but when you get a license you are agreeing to government regulation of your activities).

jrd

And just to throw in some semantics into the mix: this is not an example of a government having a “right”, but of a government having a “power.”

JRDelirious: Actually, ‘private’ gambling clubs are legal in Alberta, and my friend was very careful to follow the regulations to the best of his ability. They busted him anyway.

When this happened, another private club had already been busted about a year before, using the same practices. Those people appealed, and the government lost the appeal. But it didn’t matter, because under forfeiture laws they didn’t have to give back the tables and other stuff they confiscated, including the player’s money that was on the table.

Anyway, after the acquittal my friend decided that it was safe to open a club. He was very careful to go over the details of the original charge and avoid anything the government thought was questionable (their case relied on the fact that the law only allows for ‘voluntary’ contributions to the club for operating expenses - it is illegal to ‘rake’ the pot. The other club wasn’t ‘raking’ the pot, but the dealers were collecting the ‘voluntary’ contributions, which were generally pretty uniform. So the government tried to make the case that it was a ‘de-facto rake’, and lost). Anyway, he decided to just set up a contribution box, and let the players completely manage it themselves. And it was made clear at all times that, while the accepted practice was to contribute a couple of bucks to the box if you won the pot, no one would say a thing if you didn’t want to.

The government busted him anyway. I guess I shouldn’t have said that he’s a ‘criminal’ now, because I don’t think the case made it to trial. But the continual busts of a legal activity have a ‘chilling effect’ on patrons, who then get scared and go back to the government-run poker rooms (which ‘rake’ about three times as much money out of every pot).

It’s a disgusting scam, and actually I warned him before he opened up - the government makes a billion dollars a year from gambling, and when the money is that serious they’ll figure out a way to stop you from encroaching on their ‘turf’. Just like gangsters do.

Regardless of the moral implications which are being debated, I’ll just throuw in what is the definitive answer to the legal question in the U.S. In this country, the states have what’s called “the police power.” This gives them the legal right to regulate health, welfare, safety, and morals to a very high degree. It’s universally recognized that this includes the power to criminalize or regulate gambling, the argument being that gambling leads to a lessening of moral character as well as organized crime.

–Cliffy,
law-school graduate

Unless, of course, the state is engaged in it. Then it’s a wholesome power for good, right?

IAACD*

In Louisiana, most private gambling between individuals in not illegal. If you want to wager on a sporting event or play a poker game with friends you cannot be charged with anything. However, there can be no rake or seat rental in a “kitchen game”. If you want to play, that’s OK but, if you try to open a card room and make money from other people playing, that’s considered unregulated gaming and you could be prosecuted. (This according to a State Police Officer from the gaming division I spoke to on the phone).

Personally, I think it’s none of their damn business though.

*I am a casino dealer

Hey Sam,

That was pretty low. Are you sure you don’t live in Louisiana, aka “The Only State That Corrupted Gambling”?

Sulphur, LA had a similar scam. The police would seize nice cars on I-10 on suspicion of illicit drug traficking, then when no drugs were found, they would drop the charges and auction off the seized autos.

I would point the OP’er to a thread I started a while back on the legality of Home Poker.

The information there led me to check the laws in my home state. What I found is that, as long as we (the guys) played in a dwelling and the host did not charge anything, the game is OK.

Of course, we played (and continue to play) for small stakes. Larger stakes are different. IANAL - check the laws in your home state. Hell, I’ll bet that at least one of the guys in your game either is a lawyer or know one they could ask.