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ones, so too will the power of its lobbyists to wear down

prohibitionists.

Notwithstanding lawmakers' apocalyptic tales to the

contrary, legalized Internet gambling will come as no

great shock.  Representative Goodlatte defended his bill

to prohibit Internet gambling with the claim that existing

laws "have been turned on their head" by the Internet

because "no longer do people have to leave the comfort of

their homes" to access casinos.61   In fact, however, nine

states already allow their citizens to access professional

gaming services at home via telecommunications devices.62

Far from revolutionizing American culture, legalized

Internet gambling will merely extend current social and

technological trends.

The Benefits of Internet Gambling

For the reasons set forth above, attempts to prohibit

Internet gambling will inevitably fail and give way to

legalization.  Futility, however, hardly suffices to bar

bad public policy.  It thus bears noting that the legal-

ization of Internet gambling offers a number of benefits.

Internet gambling will encourage the private sector to

develop network capacity and commerce.  Just as real-world

casinos have competed to build innovative and appealing

environments, so too will Internet gaming services compete

to offer the flashiest graphics and most sophisticated

user interfaces.  That competition will result in broader

bandwidth and better software for all sorts of Internet

applications.

Critics of real-world casinos fault them for luring

consumers into windowless caverns far from the real world,

with money traps at every turn and free-flowing booze.63

Some gambling analysts even claim that casinos, tracks,

and other real-world sites rely on giving gamblers a place

to socialize, creating little communities that console los-

ers and--for a price--administer to the lonely.64

Regardless of the validity of such criticisms, they cer-

tainly do not apply to Internet gambling.  To the con-

trary, consumers who log on from home computers will find

it impossible to escape yelling kids, barking dogs, and

all the other distractions of the real world.  Internet

gambling thus offers a more wholesome environment than its

real-world counterpart.

Gamblers deserve all the benefits that other consumers

of entertainment services enjoy--including the benefits of