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The historical record should give pause even to lawmakers

willing to ignore the moral argument against interfering

with the right to gamble.  How could any modern politician

justify stripping the American people of rights that the

Founders fought for, won, and exercised?  Certainly, the

advent of Internet gambling is no excuse for ignoring hon-

orable historical precedents.

Conclusion

Pundits have described the Internet, typically in

overblown prose, as a powerful tool for decentralizing

political power and advancing human liberty.78   Whether or

not the Internet will live up to such hyperbole remains to

be seen.  True, the Internet has frustrated censors and

brought worlds of information to our fingertips.  But it

has never fought against the combined forces of big money,

political power, and moral rhetoric--not, at least, until

Internet gambling began to compete with entrenched, real-

world, public and private gambling interests.

Gambling presents the Internet with the greatest test

it has yet faced, but it will probably prevail.  Its prohi-

bitionist opponents must not only pass legislation banning

Internet gambling (a relatively easy task), but enforce it

(a nearly impossible one).  Sooner or later, as the futili-

ty of prohibition sinks in, as consumers demand the bene-

fits of competition in gambling services, and as states

tire of seeing potential tax revenues flow to foreign

jurisdictions, Americans will enjoy legal Internet gambling.

The legalization of Internet gambling will advance

vital public policy goals.  It will reaffirm the values,

so dear to the Founders, of individual liberty, property

rights, and the pursuit of happiness.  And it will estab-

lish the Internet as a bona fide technology of freedom.

Notes

1.  See Mary Meeker and Sharon Pearson, The Internet

Retailing Report (New York: Morgan Stanley, 1997), chap.

5, <http://www.ms.com/misc/inetRetail.html>, for a discus-

sion of the relative popularity of Web sites and of vari-

ous uses of the Web.

2.  Kevin Heubusch, "Taking Chances on Casinos," American

Demographics, May 1997, <http://www.marketingtools.com/

Publications/AD/97_ad/9705_ad/AD970530.htm>, quoting Roper

Starch Worldwide Survey.