Games of chance, most of us love them. Who can deny that pulling that lever and seeing those cherries and various other fruit icons swirling around doesn't give quite a few people a thrill. It used to be that this was considered an evil pastime by many in this country. Even today private gambling, such as card games is against the law, in many states, if they are not conducted in a sanctioned casino. Isn't that a little crazy? You can't help but wonder about such a double standard. Las Vegas was just a pile of sand before gambling hit town. It was brought there by the criminal element, but today it is considered the legal gambling capital of the United States. It is sort of the Monte Carlo of the sands. There seems to be plenty of money going around, even in these hard times. That just goes to show that some have really made it big, while more people are starving in this country than ever. I am not condemning those that take a trip there once in a while, as a matter of fact I am not condemning anyone. I have gone there myself, I am talking more about the economic situation in our country right now. Vegas, as it is called, not only features gambling, but there are plenty of other things to do, some of which are certainly not activities you want to do with your family. I will leave what I am talking about up to your imagination.

When I went there I also took the almost required tours of the surrounding country side. Hoover Dam was quite interesting. One thing that struck me was the fact that there are two time zones on the Dam and they had the clocks to prove it. Seeing the dam and then a candy factory was quite interesting. Then there were the shows. Some you could take the kids to and some, such as the topless ones, you wouldn't want to, or at least your wife would frown upon that. They claim that the best odds for the gamblers are in Las Vegas as compared to other gambling areas such as Atlantic City, NJ or the various American Indian Casinos. Some tribes are becoming quite rich from owning casinos and this proves that it is better to own a casino than to gamble in one. Sorry I couldn't resist saying that. The strange thing is that Atlantic City is making a bigger profit from gambling than Vegas. You have to wonder what the reason for this is? Are there more gamblers on the East Coast? Maybe the people that bet there, lose more per capita or maybe it is just those little extra odds favoring the house that create more profit? They certainly must do something for the place.

Gambling on line was really starting to catch on in this country, before the government put the clamps on it. Were they looking out for our own good, after all much of that gambling was based on software that could be manipulated to make us all lose, if that is what the casinos wanted to do. NO that wasn't it at all. The big casinos here used their lobbyists to ban online gambling so that they could make more money. They were afraid that their profits would suffer. Its like every other huge business in this country right now, they are all giving us the shaft lately and getting away with it. This certainly doesn't say much for the administration. The lobbyists are the curse of the system. They spread their bucks all over the government and our politicians, for the most part, are only too happy to get some of the loot and in exchange screw us and let them do whatever they want. We don't even enter into the equation, as far as they are concerned. Even the state governments don't want on line gambling. They are afraid that it will cut into their lotteries, instant lotteries and such. Gambling has turned out to be a gold mine for all concerned. There is a story that I like to tell, it is about the New York State lottery. The people of the state were told that the lottery proceeds were going to go toward the schools. When the money was taken in it did go there, but the money that had been earmarked by taxes for the schools was taken out and used for political projects, thus only lining the pockets of the special interests. The average guy had been taken advantage of again. I don't know if this practice is still going on or not, but what I told you had been reported in the papers at the time.

The U.S. decided to halt all internet gambling and as a result, the World Trade Organization has hit us with sanctions of $21 million annually. I personally don't think that this, or any amount, will change the government's mind, after all they have to take care of those powerful interests and the sanctions will just be paid with more loans and printing more money. It is almost a case of how low can the dollar go. Will it be worth less than a Peso someday? Who ever would have thought that the Canadian dollar would have been worth more? What does this show? It shows that the government doesn't know what it is doing or just doesn't care about anything. Look, the people running our government are mostly all rich and they have many different interests and don't have to rely only on the dollar's value, so why should they care, they certainly are not humanitarians. Getting back to gambling, the World Trade Organization said that the ban on gambling is illegal. Some countries were trying to get rulings against us in the billions. The country of Antigua wanted to be awarded 3.4 billion dollars because of the ban. The U.S. response to the fine was, "The United States is pleased that the figure arrived at by the arbitrator is over 100 times lower than Antigua's claim,". I think that says it all, we are probably just going to live with the fine or maybe not even pay it. This fine was only based on Antigua's claim, it will be interesting to see who else sues us.

One of the things that attract people to some of the casinos is the food. Some of these places offer incredible food values and all you can eat to attract you to them. I have seen buffets that were unbelievable, then there were those casinos that had no other casinos near them that had such terrible food that it was almost uneatable. I am not going to mention any names here, but I once went to one because my wife wanted to see it and the food was so terrible, that it was a blessing when they didn't refill the trays at the buffet. Apparently they knew that they were the only game in town, so why pay money for a top chef. I think that they must have hired the cleaner from one of the burger joints to make the stuff. It tasted like they didn't waste any money either on getting the best grades. The steak was like leather, the potatoes watery and the vegetables overcooked. There was not much of an assortment and the price was the highest I have ever seen in a casino.

Atlantic City New Jersey doesn't have the class of Las Vegas Nevada, but it does have at least the same amount of games and gaming tables. It used to be that you could play craps on the $5.00 tables, but it is almost impossible to find one now days. If you want to play that game you usually have to go to the $25.00 table. I personally haven't been inside a casino for about 6 or 7 years. I seem to have lost the desire, because I can't stand to lose money that I could buy something with. I have this hang up, if I lose money I start to think that, "hey I could have bought a camera with the amount I lost." Once you start to think that way, you are no longer a gambler. To be a true gambler you have to have the mind set that losing is part of the game, because you certainly can't always win, but if you hate to lose as much as I do, then gambling is absolutely no fun for you.

Here is a figure for you, it is estimated that half of the people that would gamble online are right here in the USA and the online gambling market is worth about 15.5 billion dollars. The US is preparing to offer trade concessions so it can keep the online gambling ban in effect.