Is it Gambling or Not?

You make your own decision but I would say so-called Internet Cafe Sweepstakes centers feature gambling as their only source of income.  This interesting article from Bloomberg Businessweek  describes a phenomena that is currently 5 to 6 years old:  gambling centers that describe themselves  as internet cafes and rip people off, mostly the poor and elderly, on a daily basis. States, like Florida, that prohibit gambling, have seen a proliferation of these shopping center casinos for years. The owners set up shop in strip shopping malls right next to dry cleaners, pizza joints and sports bars. They exist in mostly suburban neighborhoods.  They are known as “pop-up” casinos.

Were you to visit one of these centers you would need to buy a certain amount  of “internet time” and sign a waiver that states “I am not gambling”. You would sit down at a computer terminal and play games meant to mimic actual slot machines and video poker games. Most likely you would NOT surf the internet.  In fact according to the industry, you’ve purchased sweepstakes entries not gambling tokens. This is how pop-up casinos get around anti-gambling laws.

James Mecham, the managing director of SweepsCoach, a Sacramento-based company that provides startup services to new sweepstakes cafes, says he has helped open some 200 around the country in recent years. Mecham says the number continues to grow and estimates that there are now somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 operating in the U.S.

Mecham apparently has little to no ethics according to another quote from the Bloomberg article:

Customers are easy to find. Mecham says sweepstakes cafes cater primarily to two demographics: the old and the poor. “Lower-income customers are coming in because they’re bad at math,” he says. “It’s like the lottery. The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. They’re coming in to try and catch a big break.”

Isn’t Meachem  just so freaking sweet?

Question is does the public give a damn? The FBI recently shut down three popular online gambling sites.  Glenn Greenwald of Salon has a civil liberties take on the shutdowns here (well worth reading).

The pertinent question is: what are America’s priorities? Our government seems to be heavily involved in legislating morals when it comes to adult porn and gambling yet we hear not a peep about so-called Big Government from the right. So, two-faced much right-wingers?

Then again, a product specially built to target the poor and the elderly seems ultra-slimy.

What do you think?