Minnesota Trying To Ban Online Gambling

Online gambling has been frustrating for political leaders who just can’t abide people bypassing state bans on gambling by doing in privately in their own homes online. The government doesn’t control the internet (nor should we want the government to control the internet) and so the government, for the most part, can’t control what we do on the internet. Up to and including gambling.
A group of Minnesota policy makers think they’ve stumbled onto the solution: Require internet service providers to block gambling website.

Minnesota officials are trying a novel tactic to block online gambling sites — using a federal law that enables restrictions on phone calls used for wagering.
The state’s Department of Public Safety said Wednesday it had asked 11 Internet service providers to block access to 200 online gambling sites.
The state is citing a federal law that requires “common carriers,” a term that mainly applies to phone companies, to comply with requests that they block telecommunications services used for gambling.
But Internet service providers are not common carriers, meaning it’s unlikely that a court would compel an ISP to comply with Minnesota’s request, said John Morris, general counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.
Morris also noted that the law appears to apply to phone companies directly doing business with bet-takers. But online gambling is already illegal in the U.S., so gambling sites are based overseas and U.S. ISPs have no direct links to them.

We can quibble about whether or not Minnesota can, in fact, require ISP’s to block gambling sites. I happen to think that Mr. Morris’ interpretation of the law above is correct, but even if it’s not…what about cable companies that provide internet services? What about satellite companies? Cell phone companies? If Minnesota blocks gambling sites through telephone company ISP’s people are just going to get cable internet.
And why does Minnesota want to block gambling anyway? There are already casinos in the state (on several of the Indian reservations) and the state has had a lottery for years. If gambling is so awful, why are these examples of sanctioned by the state (though I realize that the reservation gambling is a federal issue)?
I suspect this is more about government control than any concerns over the impact of gambling on society. If the politicians were really concerned about that, they’d get rid of the state lottery.
I say let people gamble if they want to. It’s a free country, no?