Religion and Gambling in the News

The executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling says treatment and education should be the tools used to prevent compulsive gambling, not laws banning online casinos....

Gambling opponents stay persistent in Ohio, filing a lawsuit to block the governor's plan to install slots at state race tracks....

Famed conservative thinker George Will comes out for legalized online casinos and Internet poker....

A question of tax laws between a Minnesota minister and the IRS may lead to broader questions of how church leaders can campaign against online casinos and retain tax-free status....

A leader of the cause to open Bahamian casinos and licensed gambling to residents of the country says religious groups fighting him ignore the illegal spread of gaming....

A study shows that lottery gambling is disproportionately supported by poor and minorities, but foes of casino gambling are relatively silent....

Gaming opponents fight new slots in New Hampshire even as charities, including religious organizations, make millions from an exception for casino gambling involving charitable table games....

Ohio residents speak out against church groups that cynically are attempting a lawsuit to block a gambling proposal to bring slots to race tracks in order to fund the state budget....

Supposedly family-friendly religious groups united to salute the illegal freezing of bank accounts of money headed to online gambling patrons by the US government....

The few Iowa areas left without casino gambling want their share of the pie, and are asking for expansion of state licensed gaming venues from seventeen to twenty-two....

A monstrous tale of a father who kept betting online on horse races while his daughter's dead body had been discovered doesn't mean gambling is at fault, says an analyst....

The radical religious right responded to Barney Frank's bills to regulate online gambling with demagoguery and deception....

With a sharp debate expected to ensue over Barney Frank's bill to regulate online gambling, gaming observers say Congress needs to hear from everyday people, not just religious nuts....

A religious leader in the Bahamas says the country's gambling laws are unfair and discriminatory....

Online gambling laws may be liberalized in the US, but some think the process may take years rather than weeks, as a fierce battle with gaming and casino foes lurks ahead....

A Harvard professor specializing in addictive behavior says online casinos are less dangerous than land-based gaming and that gambling proliferation has not increased the numbers of problem gamblers....

Under attack by anti-gaming factions, bars and restaurants in Australia say legislators should look to online casinos for any spread in problem gambling, not them....

Despite worries about social costs, opponents of casino gambling are forced to admit crime and other issues have lessened in areas that introduced gaming....

Representative Barney Frank says his bill to regulate online casinos and Internet gaming will be released next month....

James Dobson and his radical religious group have fought for the online casino ban, but even they admit Internet gambling is still increasing and the UIGEA hasn't done any good....

Ron Paul's healthy showing in a poll of conservative leaders shows the online casino industry legalization may be bipartisan....

Australians were not receptive to a controversial Islamic cleric from Melbourne who said in an Internet sermon that the people of that country are addicted to vices like gambling....

China's censorship of political dissent, gambling, and pornography has expanded to include criticism of Google and other search engines, which may lead to banning of those that link to online casinos and other unwanted sites....

Girding themselves for what is likely to be a losing battle, Focus on the Family praised Spencer Bachus' return to his seat on the Financial Services Committee as a spot from which he can fight regulation of online gambling....

Taiwanese lawmakers, eager to avail themselves of gambling revenues that nearby countries enjoy, are set to issue three casino licenses....

State voters have sent new casino proposals raising betting limits, expanding operating hours, and adding new games to local residents of the three gambling towns....

Focus on the Family saluted Congressional action against online gambling as a plus for families, not admitting that poker and gambling are taught by parents to children as amusement....

James Dobson's Focus on the Family fringe religious group has denounced lotteries as a dangerously addictive form of gambling, even though simple common sense shows greater danger in many things, including religious zealotry....

The U.S. Treasury is rushing to implement the UIGEA, preventing payments to and from online casinos, before the end of term for the Bush administration....

Both online casinos and land gambling interests may find John McCain to be the more sympathetic to their interests, despite the Republican Party platform....

The government of Bermuda is thinking about making the country a base for online casinos to locate....

Colorado voters will decide a ballot issue concerning loosening some gambling restrictions on casinos, and Focus on the Family is once again aggressively spreading a campaign of misinformation....

Choosing political expediency over a stand of principle, Joe Biden's son and his firm have quit all lobbying of Congress, including that for an Internet gaming site....

Focus on the Family's "gaming analyst", Chad Hills, delivered a quick but unfounded and illogical response to Barney Frank's new proposal to start toward Internet gambling regulation....

Reports from Washington state Joe Biden's son Hunter and his law firm have been hired to lobby on behalf of Internet casino operator Russ DeLeon....

A University of Pennsylvania source quoted by Focus on the Family for much of its data regarding Internet adolescent gambling says that laws are not the best way to attack youth issues....

Yesterday, the Republican Party struck down a platform clause denouncing online gambling, affirming themselves as the party of liberty; today, under pressure from religious fanatics, they returned the offensive sentences....

Two sentences in the Republican Party platform calling for non-tolerance of Internet gambling were stricken after loyal Republicans expressed their disapproval en masse....

Even though gambling is forbidden by religious and state law, Iranians flock to Internet casinos, making a comparison to the United States American leaders may find unflattering and embarrassing....

Chad Hills, Focus on the Family's gambling analyst who refuses to gather facts to analyze, once again attacked Internet wagering without evidence or reason....

An online poll by USA Today has a near-unanimous response in favor of online gambling, backing many lawmakers who believe regulation is the best way to deal with Internet casinos....

A leader of the Catholic Church attacks gambling in the Philippines, disregarding the direct contributions legalized Philippino gambling makes to fight poverty....

The defeat in committee of the Frank-Paul resolution to regulate online gambling is a fine demonstration of how the Republican Party has become what it hates, a group sponsoring the imposition of big government....

The head of gambling controls in the Bahamas wants to open the nation's casinos to citizens and residents, who are currently not allowed to play....

The makeup of the prefrontal lobe may be different in those with compulsive and addictive behavior: gamblers, politically correct, and fundamentalists....

Rabid anti-gambling crusader Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York admitted his own vice Monday as he was implicated in a prostitution investigation....

Florida Governor Crist has embraced gambling, using it as a source of wealth for his state....

After a defeat in 2005, residents of Miami-Dade County approved a referendum to allow slots at three existing race tracks....

Voters in Miami-Dade county will go to the polls January 29 to vote for the expansion of slot machine gambling at the counties parimutuels....

Congressman Howard Coble asked if Internet gaming sites are bastions for terrorist money laundering, the response was that there is no evidence for that statement. ...