©
The social ills of gambling are no secret, which is why most types are heavily regulated or banned altogether in Virginia.
But there are loopholes, and through them all kinds of operators are step-by-step trying to turn the commonwealth into a gambling center.
Virginia's regulation, for example, doesn't appear to extend to online sweepstakes outlets, which have sprouted virtually unchecked across the region in recent months.
The businesses, often posing as Internet cafes, draw customers willing to purchase a block of time. That access comes with credits or points that can be used in sweepstakes-style games, where users have an opportunity to win more points and redeem them for cash.
The thrill of chance and the prospect of a big prize keep customers glued to their seats and forking out money. Owners insist the sweepstakes games aren't "real gambling," but that defense rings hollow.
North Carolina officials felt so strongly about the sweepstakes cafes that they passed a law banning them entirely, effective Dec. 1.
Several of those businesses, as The Pilot's Aaron Applegate reported last month, have since moved into Virginia, where Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has opined that they appear to comply with current law.
Even so, the legality of the games remains unclear, and authorities are investigating whether the businesses violate state gambling laws.
In the meantime, the games are proliferating, turning Hampton Roads into a de facto center of online gambling. If that sounds familiar to Portsmouth's early experience with poker halls, it should.
That business went unchallenged for so long that the city was in danger of becoming Virginia's poker capital without citizens or City Council members ever having taken a vote.
Supporters of the sweepstakes games argue that the cafes are comparable to bingo halls. But even bingo is regulated by state law, which outlines restrictions on play, payment and prizes, among other aspects of the game.
At the municipal level, an equally pressing issue involves where - and when - these sweepstakes cafes should open.
City staff in Chesapeake is drafting a zoning amendment that would restrict their locations and hours. Without it, these businesses are free to draw customers 24 hours a day without regard for their neighbors.
These are not imaginary concerns. As The Pilot's Marjon Rostami reported recently, residents in Chesapeake's South Norfolk community have complained to city officials that the sweepstakes cafes are threatening efforts to revitalize the neighborhood.
Virginians have the right to fritter away their money. But before Virginia is covered in gambling halls, lawmakers in Richmond and municipal governments should make a conscious decision to do so.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Is this really any big suprise?
The nanny state has a made habit of forcing it's hypocritical puritan laws on private citizens for years. ABC stores are still not privately owned, telling a restaraunt/bar owner that you cannot have smoking in your privately owned and operated business if you serve food, you can't serve alcohol at a strip joint...
The list just keeps growing and growing...
This is why
This is why we voted against the Lottery 30 years ago. Once that passed, the camel had its nose in the tent. Now the Commonwealth is reduced to arguing that the only "good" gambling is that from which it alone profits. Sad, but predictable.
Given the choice
between the social ills of gambling and those of a Nanny State, I'd prefer the gambling, especially since I am not forced to gamble.
But, then, you already know that.
Such hypocrisy.
This article displays stunning hypocrisy and a fearsome paternalist streak.
Between lotteries, off-track betting and the bingo and charitable gaming locations around, there's no shortage of legal gambling available. The pilot makes oblique references to the "social ills" of gambling, yet never names them or offers why the state-sanctioned varieties of gambling are exempt from these ills.
And then the pilot uses its favored term of "loophole" to describe activities it disagrees with but are otherwise legal. Despite the fact that these cafes are doing nothing illegal, we need to hold off until Richmond gives us the OK. God forbid free people engage in legal activities prior to getting permission from mom and dad in City Hall and Richmond.
Whew!
I'm glad we're doing a great job of avoiding all those demon "social ills of gambling."
Bingo, off-track betting, Colonial Downs race track, and the lottery certainly don't qualify as gambling, do they?
And I'm glad Virginia isn't "covered in gambling halls."
All those 7-11's, service stations, and convenience stores where you can buy lottery tickets and place a bet on "the thrill of chance and the prospect of a big prize" don't qualify as gambling halls, do they?
All we are doing is shooting ourselves in the foot as the potential very lucrative revenue stream gushes northward and empties into the Delaware and West Virginia casinos.
What are the social ills and how pervasive are they
Just what are these social ills and how pervasive are they. The state needs to do away with the prohibition of gambling. Remember "Prohibition", when religious zealots got in power and forced their idea's on everybody else, when "Demon Rum" was outlawed. Prohibition caused a lot of problems and crime and was finally repealed. Well it is time to repeal the prohibition on gambling and the problems and crime it causes. The state should allow casinos, regulate them, make money off them. The bordering state that have gambling receive a minimum of $500 million a year. Just think what that could do to the road mess without raising taxes, fees, or tolls.