Maybe you bet $5 with a pal that the Chiefs would win. Or maybe it was $10 in the office pool that the score would be over 50. Or maybe it was $20 with your golfing buddies that Patrick Mahomes would be the Super Bowl MVP. In each of those cases you would have won, but the money was effectively invisible. Invisible, that is, in that it was cash passed between 2 people, and won't show up on any official accounting of gains or losses. (Should the IRS be read this, I stand corrected: I'm sure you will declare it on your taxes. Won't you?)
Those small wagers were just part of the record 50 million Americans who bet somewhere around $16 billion on Super Bowl 57, according to the American Gaming Association. The majority of that money was not in the small, friendly wagers detailed above, but through the mega gaming companies like FanDuel, Caesars Entertainment and DraftKings. And some was also put in play through Indian gaming facilities run by Native American tribes on their own sovereign lands.
Since beginning as bingo games on tribal lands in the 1970's, Indian gaming has grown to about $40 billion a year. That system was formalized by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA), and has grown to 524 American Indian gaming operations in 29 states. That actually exceeds the number of commercial casinos operating in just 25 states, and includes the largest 5 physical casinos in the country.
However, in this one area – sports betting – Indian gaming has not kept pace. That's because the growth in gambling in this area has mostly been via the online portals as opposed to physical sports books. These days you can use your phone to place a bet from anywhere in the country where it's legal. It can be your office, your couch or your car, without ever setting foot on an Indian reservation. And since the IGRA specifically says that the Indian gaming franchise is limited to gaming while on a reservation, they are getting bypassed.
But where there's a will, there's a wager. Multiple tribes have entered the online fray, and taken the position that the servers are, in effect, the casino. They say that regardless of where you are, when you place a bet online, and the money flows through computers that are located on their land, you are effectively on the reservation. And in that scenario they should be allowed to profit from online gambling under the rules of the IGRA.
State by state that ruling is either being challenged or new legislation being introduced to make it permissible. As with any lawmaking, the eventual results will depend on the usual lobbying and arm twisting that accompanies any new edict which benefits one group over another. Millions of dollars are at stake for the formerly protected tribes, so the fights are likely to be long and costly, with armies of lawyers on both sides.
I can't help wondering if the underlying concept is applicable to all of us. Sure, we have a place we call home, where we put our heads on our pillows. But while we may spend a large chunk of our time there, we spend an increasing amount shopping, socializing, learning, relaxing, playing and working online. And those activities are based not in our basement but in some remote server farm in Reston VA or Council Bluffs, IA or Moncks Corner, SC.
Following the lead of the tribes, you could make a case that your Etsy business making scarves isn't domiciled in your spare bedroom but in Lenoir, NC. Or that the clubhouse for your Facebook soccer group isn't in your garage but in Mons, Belgium. Or that while you get your Amazon packages delivered to an apartment in Brooklyn, the Gmail box where you get all your bills delivered is in Dalles, OR. And in each case the tax laws and regulations should be based not on your physical location, but where you hang your online hat.
In short, going forward your virtual reality may be realer than your real deal. Afterall, there's no need of an avatar in the metaverse to be someone somewhere else when effectively you are already you somewhere else. The hard part will be remembering where you left your keys.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford lives equally on and offline. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment