Laid Back Llama said:Criminal means breaking the law and they’re doing it badly (accepting players from countries that ban them, skipping taxes where they actually live and run the business, and assuming nobody will notice especially with all their faces put out there as well)
Your definition of “crime” is a scary one. It implies that whatever is done “badly” isn’t a moral concept but rather one that is dictated by law.
See, if your argument was that gambling by its essence is “bad” or “immoral”… ok, we can have a discussion on what's moral or not.
But if your argument is that they're committing a crime because they “skip taxes where they actually live and run their business”… buddy, there’s a reason that some Indian reservations were left to survive in the United States…. only to become “token emblems” of the casino industry.
The average Joe who wants to launch his gaming joint in the USA doesn’t have guns or enough small pox to force Geronimo to give him a small piece of his territory...
.… but guess who does? :D
Laid Back Llama said:And yes the mob in Vegas was criminal too but the ones who lasted went legit and the rest went to prison + they were different crimes compared to today, but with same ending
By "went legit", you mean that instead of Bugsy Siegel and Lansky extortion, you've now got the IRS and people dressed in costumes doing the exact same thing?
Laid Back Llama said:A license is a permit for one country, not a passport for the world.
Basically, you were rich enough with enough connections in that country to bribe the local gang to give you the license, and others did not. I believe that the product should be incentivized (i.e. better service and better games), rather than connections and bribes.
To show how ludicrous the whole "license" and "permit" system is, we don't even need to talk about gambling - just look at the insane cost $$$$ to buy a hot dog stand in New York.
The Washington Post even wrote an entire fucking article on this permit debacle in Chicago, with the following headline: "Chicago’s political culture prioritizes who you know, rather than how well you serve customers."
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@Laid Back Llama here is an excerpt from a book that summarizes my argument better than I could ever do: “The Most Dangerous Superstition” by Larken Rose (highly recommended book):
“The phrase “committing a crime” obviously has a negative connotation. The notion that “breaking the law” is morally wrong implies that the command being disobeyed is inherently legitimate, based solely upon who gave the command. If a street gang tells a store owner, “You give us half of your profits or we hurt you,” no one would consider the store owner a “criminal” if he resisted such extortion. But if the same demand is made by those wearing the label of “government,” with the demand being called “law” and “taxes,” then that very same store owner would be viewed, by almost everyone, as a “criminal” if he refused to comply.
The terms “crime” and “criminal” do not, by themselves, even hint at what “law” is being disobeyed. It is a “crime” to slowly drive through a red light at an empty intersection, and it is a “crime” to murder one’s neighbors, A hundred years ago it was a “crime” to teach a slave to read; in 1945 Germany it was a “crime” to hide Jews from the SS. In Pennsylvania, it is a “crime” to sleep in or on top of a refrigerator outside. Literally, committing a “crime” means disobeying the commands of politicians, and a “criminal” is anyone who does so. Again, such terms have an obviously negative connotation, Most people do not want to be called a “criminal,” and they mean it as an insult if they call someone else a “criminal.”
