The opening paragraphs of a letter written to the editor of The Morning Call penned by Paul I. Clymer, former Representative for the 145th District of Bucks County, PA, sound innocuous enough. But that was not their author’s intent. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Under the legislation, casinos would be authorized to have Internet gambling, allowing gamblers to play poker, blackjack, roulette and slots using their credit cards online. The bill would legalize Internet gambling kiosks at airports. Lottery tickets could be sold over the internet. Fantasy sports gambling would be legalized,” The opening remarks read. Not exactly Stephen King we’re reading here.
But Mr. Clymer would have you believe differently. His attempt at fearmongering was intended to incite fear in the hearts of Pennsylvania residents everywhere. But his less than stellar attempt shows at the very least a lack of effort, and at worst, represents a clear indication that he believes the people of Pennsylvania to be unintelligent. Clymer stated that the gambling bill, HB 271, is a “regressive taxation, as the poor, the less fortunate and the uneducated become victims.” He went on to ask inane questions like “is there an age limit? Who will be policing underage gambling?”
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“We need answers.”
Well clearly, Mr. Clymer couldn’t be bothered to read to find those answers he so desperately seeks. All of the regulatory questions he asked were answered in the bill itself or in the already established gambling laws in Pennsylvania’s Penal Code. Heck, I could answer these questions he’s asked, and I don’t even live in Pennsylvania. Nor am I as familiar with the Penal Code as say, a former lawmaker who served in the state’s House of Representatives since 1981 should be.
Regardless, Mr. Clymer is claiming ignorance of Pennsylvania’s gambling age (21, in case you were wondering) and its Regulatory Commission (The PA Gaming Control Board). Rather, he has decided he wants to incite alarm amongst residents of PA. So, to counter the ridiculous letter written by the former Representative, we will address the issues he brings up.
First, he says that the bill will levy heavy taxes on “the poor, the less fortunate and the uneducated”. (And he doesn’t even use an Oxford comma, which is just in poor grammatical taste). HB 271 does have some heavy taxation language within it. The Senate committees added the same tax guidelines for online gambling businesses that it leveled on land-based gambling venues before passing the bill, this is true.
But the bill has not been signed into law. In fact, it isn’t even being sent to the Governor for quite some time. The bill has made its way back to the House, as is protocol since the Senate made changes to a House bill. Furthermore, many in the House have already said that they would be working on the tax regulations that the Senate imposed in order to make them more feasible.
In addition to this, those taxes are levied against the owners and operators of the online gambling sites, so unless it is the poor, the less fortunate, and the uneducated who are running an online gambling ring in their backyard, his claims that they become the victims under HB 271 are baseless.
Finally, Clymer references a study conducted under the authority of President Bill Clinton, the 1999 National Gambling Impact Study. He says that “the unanimous conclusion targeted internet gambling as the worst of all gambling.” In a very pathetic attempt to appeal to those who vote with their family values rather than their heads, he finished the letter with: “Is there not enough vice tempting our citizens, especially our youth?”
So let’s parse this out, shall we?
The National Gambling Impact Study of 1999 does indeed examine the state of gambling in the US and does have some choice things to say about Internet gambling, so Clymer’s claims are not false there. But it is a bit hyperbolic when he says “Internet gambling as the worst of all gambling”. And by a bit, I mean extremely.
Even if the impact study does say that (which it doesn’t), I think we can all agree that there have been considerable changes made since then. 1999 was 18 years ago. Most online gambling sites had only just opened the year prior to this study being conducted. Of course there would be bugs in the system! Not to mention, the evolution of a product over the course of 18 years is sure to iron out many of the stated problems, if not all of them, making any study more than a few years old outdated. But the leaps and bounds that the internet and internet-enabled devices especially have made in that time period clearly show that any information garnered by this study is obsolete.
So LegalPennsylvaniaGambling.com dug into the topic and found a much more recent study on the impact of gambling to reference, for the sake of morality and in the name of scientific integrity, neither of which Mr. Clymer holds in high regard, clearly. The study, conducted by Sally M. Gainsbury, was published on April 11 of 2015 to the US National Library of Medicine. The study is called “Online Gambling Addiction: The Relationship Between Internet Gambling and Disordered Gambling.” We won’t go into all of the nitty-gritty research found in the study. We’ll just leave you with one quote.
“The findings presented here are important for policy makers due to evidence that Internet gambling in itself is not harmful.” The study goes on to show that there is no correlation between online gambling and the development of a gambling problem. As for the “vices” tempting the youths of Pennsylvania, the legal gambling age is 21. Any state licensed online gambling site will have systems in place to verify legal age and identity.
So Mr. Clymer’s letter is saturated in personal bias and false or hyperbolized claims. Currently, Pennsylvania’s iGaming bill HB 271 has been returned to the House and referred to the Rules Committee, where changes and amendments are being made to further the passage of this legislation, despite the former Reps efforts. Maybe Mr. Clymer will dedicate more time to research and less time to incendiary statements when next he writes the editor.