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a competitive marketplace.  By giving consumers cheap and

easy access to a variety of gaming opportunities, the

Internet will bring competition to an industry that has

too long enjoyed the shelter of highly restrictive licens-

ing practices.  Freeing the gambling market will help to

ensure that only the most honest and generous casinos suc-

ceed in drawing bettors' business.

Gamblers also deserve the same legal protections that

other consumers enjoy.  Prohibition will not cut off

access to Internet gambling; it will, however, cut off

access to the courts.  Internet gamblers, like other con-

sumers, will undoubtedly suffer fraud, breach of contract,

and other legal wrongs from time to time.  Prohibition

ensures that Internet gamblers, like people involved in

the drug trade, will have no recourse to legal remedies.65

Prohibiting Internet gambling will not make it inaccessi-

ble, whereas legalizing it will put the benefits of

increased competition within the rule of law.

On the Regulation of Internet Gambling

For the reasons set forth above, we should both rec-

ognize and celebrate that legalization will trump the pro-

hibition of Internet gambling.  But regulators will no

doubt remain worried.  What role will they have in the

brave new world of Internet gambling?  Playing off that

worry, proponents of a ban on Internet gambling have

argued that, if prohibition will not work, then neither

will any scheme of regulation.66   Such an argument funda-

mentally misunderstands a basic principle of governance: if

they offer greater benefits than burdens, regulations can

succeed even where prohibition fails.67

The comparative advantage of limited regulation over

prohibition explains why people do not illegally shoot

craps in Las Vegas alleys.  In the case of Internet gam-

bling, the benefits of winning an official stamp of

approval might convince an online casino to submit to reg-

ulation,68 even if that same casino could easily flout a

total ban on its business.  Exactly how much regulation

will the Internet gambling industry tolerate?  In all

likelihood, not very much; for the reasons set forth

above, providers and consumers of Internet gambling servic-

es will find it relatively easy to escape unduly burden-

some regulations.

It may well turn out that Internet gambling tolerates

only such simple and general rules as those that common

law stipulates for property, contracts, and torts.  That