Casino Gambling Guide

While most sports fans believed that Mark McGwire used steroids during his playing days, those suspicions were confirmed when the former Cardinals first baseman recently admitted to his illicit use of the performance enhancing drugs.

What may have been more interesting is the fact that McGwire claims to have used these drugs not simply as a means of getting ahead. McGwire says he took steroids because he believed that they would help him heal from injuries more quickly.

This seems very believable when you look at the career path that McGwire followed. Through 1989, his playing time had been seriously hampered due to injury, and many felt that he would otherwise be the best home run hitter in baseball if not for his injury issues.

What followed in the years to come was exactly what one would expect. He was healthier through the majority of the remainder of his career, and his offensive production was exceptional.

Everything came together in 1998, a year in which McGwire set baseball history. Having broken a seemingly unbreakable record held by Roger Maris, the St. Louis Cardinal hit an astounding 70 home runs during the course of the year.

It was a matter of a few seasons before people realized that there had to be some means of artificial help creating seasons once thought to be impossible for older players like McGwire, Barry Bonds, and many others. There had to be steroids involved.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that McGwire and others were using illegal substances. There was no other way to explain the unprecedented jumps in production, and the baseball world should have been keen to this.

McGwire violated the trust of the baseball world and cheated his way to a record. Despite this all, he deserves a bit of respect for having the courage to come out with a secret that hundreds of players from that era still likely hold.

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The Federal ban on sports betting has been blasted by anyone who knows anything about the subject for a number of different reasons. Though the US professional leagues suggest that sports betting threatens the integrity of their games, the opposite is the case. This is important because there would still be no shortage of outlets for college sport wagering, be it offshore or with your local illegal bookmaker. The professional bookmaking industry is usually where any type of compromised or fixed game is discovered. Ultimately, the true injustice of banning sports betting lies in its contempt for the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the Congress of the United States has shown very little respect for the Constitution in recent years. Were it to abide strictly by the role outlined for it by the founding fathers, the Legislative Branch of our government would have to relinquish any number of its powers in a variety of areas. The primary problem with our Congress is that it has increasingly become a collection of career politicians rather than a body representative of its constituency. As a result, the overriding concern of the average Senator or Congressman is increasing the power that he is able to wield, and as a result the power that his body is able to bring to bear. Most problematic for you and I, every increase in power at the Federal level must be brought about by a usurpation of state and local sovereignty and, more alarmingly, personal liberty.

The Federal prohibition of sports wagering which was enacted a few years back is of very dubious Constitutionality. Were it not for the grandfather clause, which allowed it to remain legal in jurisdictions in which it already existed, it would have certainly been struck down as unconstitutional on a number of different fronts.

Unfortunately, the mere fact that a proposed law or initiative is unconstitutional offers little protection for the citizenry. In fact, the concept of state sovereignty is one of the most important–and most abused–in the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In other words, unless the power in question has been expressly given to the Federal government by the Constitution, and/or unless it has expressly been prohibited to the states (as in the case of treaty making) it is the right of each individual state to govern themselves as they see fit. If an individual state chooses not to regulate a certain activity, it is the right of each individual citizen to make their own decision. That was the overriding concern of the writers and framers of the Constitution”that the personal liberty of the individual not be violated by a too-powerful central government.

So, you should be asking yourself at this point, where exactly does the Constitution delegate to the Federal government the right to make policy on sports gambling? The answer is that it doesnt, and it is very questionable that they have the Constitutional authority to do so. The sanctimonious blowhards who oppose sports betting would like to think they know best, but fortunately for all freedom loving Americans the founding fathers would beg to differ.

Sports gambling may seem a minimally important issue to some, but the erosion of liberty is an incremental danger. The danger to broader concepts of personal liberty may seem a million miles away, but with each additional law intended to protect us from this or that the Federal government becomes larger and more powerful and the rights of the sovereign states”and the individuals that comprise them”are shrinking and being weakened.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance sports writer and respected authority on NFL football betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and an emu. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

Stanford’s Gambling Markers Have Bounced, Sued for Over 8480 in Gambling Debt (Bloomberg News)

Will Federal Banking Regulations Force Online Casinos to Fold? Until recently, online casinos operated outside of the reach of the United States Government. Now, in an innovative effort at law making, Congress has charged banks and other financial institutions with preventing the operation of online casinos in the US market. By requiring banks to shun transactions from gambling sites, Congress hopes to cut off the interaction between sites and their customers on US soil. Whether this will be successful is unknown. This discussion will explore what the new regulations will do to both the banking and gaming industries. More importantly it will examine whether this is an appropriate and acceptable form of law enforcement. Will this law overburden banks by making them the agents of the federal government, or will it be an easy to incorporate standard that will make banks more secure? Should online gambling be outright prohibited in the United States or should Congress merely regulate and tax this activity? These and many other questions will be explored during the lecture. Speakers include: Steve Verdier, Senior Vice President and Director of Congressional Relations Group for the Independent Community Bankers of America Houman Shadab, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center Regulatory Studies Program Michael Borden, Office of Congressman Jim Leach Moderated by: Gavin Young, Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Music performed by Two Violins and licensed under Creative …

Will Federal Banking Regulations Force Online Casinos to Fold? Until recently, online casinos operated outside of the reach of the United States Government. Now, in an innovative effort at law making, Congress has charged banks and other financial institutions with preventing the operation of online casinos in the US market. By requiring banks to shun transactions from gambling sites, Congress hopes to cut off the interaction between sites and their customers on US soil. Whether this will be successful is unknown. This discussion will explore what the new regulations will do to both the banking and gaming industries. More importantly it will examine whether this is an appropriate and acceptable form of law enforcement. Will this law overburden banks by making them the agents of the federal government, or will it be an easy to incorporate standard that will make banks more secure? Should online gambling be outright prohibited in the United States or should Congress merely regulate and tax this activity? These and many other questions will be explored during the lecture. Speakers include: Steve Verdier, Senior Vice President and Director of Congressional Relations Group for the Independent Community Bankers of America Houman Shadab, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center Regulatory Studies Program Michael Borden, Office of Congressman Jim Leach Moderated by: Gavin Young, Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee.