Recently, Churchill Downs, famous for the Kentucky Derby, affluent cats, celebrities and mint juleps, acquired the rights to Youbet.com in a move to join the online gambling market. But wait, isn’t online gambling illegal in the U.S? Isn’t Kentucky the site for an intense legal dispute over online gambling domains? What the hell is going here? Read more.
Well, FYI, what Churchill Downs has done happens to be legal one hundred percent legal. Some may say that’s horseshit. But somehow it’s the law. You see the US horse racing industry is currently exempt from all federal laws regarding online horse betting.
Confused? Join the club. The question is how is all of that possible when the game of poker which can be debated as gambling or skill depending on your stance, is currently not licensed online or regulated? Therein lies the dual nature of the legislative law regarding the online gaming world.
Please believe that once this deal is solidified and all the appropriate documentation is forwarded to the US Department of Justice, Churchill Downs fully expects to realize huge profits from online wagers on racing events. I’m not going to call it preferential treatment, but, that’s preferential treatment no matter how you look at it. All the arguments that can be made against the legalization of online gambling come to a galloping halt when instances like this arise. Interestingly enough, CDI also owns other off track betting facilities including: TwinSpires.com and they also operate casino slot and gaming operations in Louisiana and Florida.
To me, that’s a lot of monopolized cheese flowing in one direction. Right about now I’m wishing I had one of those executives on my fab five or facebook, a little present in my Christmas stocking would have been nice, like say a million or two off the top, they certainly wouldn’t miss it.
Really what all this boils down to is that all the moral ground arguments against online gambling that I’ve heard in the past are null and void in my book. If you can bet on horses online and you can’t play poker, well, hell, that’s just plain horseshit.
