This is our show tonight. Now it is time for john stossel. John i like to gamble. We want to bet on whether Hillary Clinton will become president with the stock market will go up on thursday . I will take any bet as long as the odds seem fair. Supposedly more than 100 million americans filled out march madness brackets. Totaling about 12 elion, thats more than the super bowl. And according to our new reading of federal and state law, betting on those brackets is illegal. It is illegal in nevada and montana because of an old law and a smalltime pool among friends that are allowed in vermont and connecticut. Otherwise betting on march madness is a we illegal. So why even have a . Because it makes some people feel good . Should betting on sports be allowed . Never. It encourages people to spend money. I really think that this is a fundamental moral issue and you have to make a stand here, even as i am standing now. It causes people to lose control. Patrick basham says chill out. He says gambling is a healthy bad. What do you mean . Its good for Emotional Health and physical health. They provide social interaction. All kinds of physiological benefit. Older people who gamble have less alcoholism, less depression. Theres all kinds of things. I am convinced. Especially when you lead with the march madness. Now it is becoming a dominating national headline. Weisbach . Because government has made gambling the way it communicates to citizens on a daily basis. What else is government advertised . Casinos, lotteries, that is why you the march madness but you have today. John what is the government connection to march madness . We have gone from gambling being a private and local activity with a group of friends and now with government constantly advertising gambling to society, we have created a culture where gambling dominates the headlines. Your group is titled stop predatory gambling. What would you do . Our mission is to get government out of the gambling business. When you do a commercial, its different than your friday night poker game. This is being done is a commercial enterprise. Governments are actively cheating and exploiting citizens. If we encourage citizens to go against probability. You hve them spending billions of dollars on this stuff are in. We will get to this later in the show. But lets stick to march madness are in april are batting a thousand dollars to win 60,000, should that be allowed . If youre not doing it for for profit, not to sell out. The ncaa says these types of tools are often the entry point and fans should enjoy following the tournament. Not for the amount of money they could possibly when. I would actually say that it is our focus, if it is on the juice lee gambling, whatever we think the level of that is, what we know from the researches that later in life that one starts to gamble for the first time, you a developer problem and that problem will be more severe. And yet if you are involved in sports, you can get in big trouble at the university. One individual was fired and he described it as just a gathering with friends. Its a victimless crime. If youre not betting against your own team. I dont see how it is anyones business. At the time the university of washington was looking for a reason to file. We were teaching kids managing risk of gambling. Theres a difference but teaching them how to be responsible versus encouraging them to lose their money in a bad scam. Its like sitting to your children and encouraging them to play videocam that they have no chance of winning. We are not talking about commercial gambling. Some gamblers win. And gambling teaches kids math skills, which this country needs in problem solving. We are much more interested in playingd learning odds than sitting in class. Think theres a gambling interests that is pinpointing poker. The average person they say that it seems like such a harmless game. So our kids and grandchildren, you know, that is the focus. That is what the fight is about. What this gets to is fundamentally that there are people in our society in positions of power who think there is an amount of money, for example, that i should or should not be able to use these memos and suddenly it should be bad for me and everyone around me. It is elitism, condescending, and its not what i think this country is all about. I agree. But i thought that he would win. Wow. After i won this pot i asked my poker buddies, what do you think of the loss of protect people . We are intelligent enough to know i women. And we are leaving the government out of it. We are not always Strong Enough are able to govern ourselves. The addictive element of gambling forces the government to step in. That is stupid. Smoking cigarettes is an addictive behavior. Half of the states ban gambling like that with friends in your home. And that gives the police power to enforce it on people they dont like. What are your thoughts . The friday night poker game, leaving it in the privacy of their own home. You worry about people that have a gambling problem . Absolutely. And youre not putting a lien on someones house. But that is across the line. Its predatory. It is a business model. Forty to 60 of their profits come from people who had a problem with it. Were talking about a healthy endeavor. The questions for folks like patrick is how much money they made from people who are from them and as we increase the opportunity to gamble, more of us develop more Serious Problems and we all go to hell in handbasket. The history of this country and other countries have far more gambling and have done for centuries or it it tells us that there is a natural feeling to this. Very are a tiny fracture of the population. The problem gambling did not go out. I havent seen a study that suggests that it doesnt go up. Addiction is when people lose control, meaning that it takes over their lives that the use money for college wishon or whatever. Youre say that youre in control. You stick to it limits. This is important. The addiction is a laypersons time. What we are really talking about our bad habits. Some of which become tragically bad and we are not talking about a medical illness that removes responsibility of self control from an individual. On these guys who promote casinos and the politicians. They dont lose their own money gambling. I support the right to gamble, the same as thomas jefffferson did. Its far more preferable in all kinds of levels and its a voluntary tax. John lets talk about your passion, which is the casino. Its the worst that for the biggest suckers and they are freely choosing to do that. They idea that its a game that is rigged against the plane off. The heart of the issue is that slot machines are legal must government is a partner. Those that are actively promoting and exploiting citizens through slot machines. Government used to ban gambling. It was criminalized. And most people leave you alone because youre not lending people money. No one is jumping off parking rodders like they do at other times. Your website says addictive gamblers are abandoning their children in casino parking lots. And the state of pennsylvania. There have been dozens of instances. How many kids were abandoned and hurt . Elise 20 kids in the past two years. Because the casinos are in partnership with government, allowing them to have free play. Where the kids heard . They took the kids away. Of course they were. Even in the most tragic cases, a problem of pathological gambling is very hard to disentangle with all the things of the things that are going wrong in that persons life or it sometimes im the first one to admit that the problem gambling is very often substanceabuse of another kind. The people who get into these problems tend to have difficulties. So lets move onto another way to gamble. Have you been to the track . Most states have a least one. Usually they just racehorses, but sometimes they raised dogs. And the only way you can bet on these races used to be to come to the track and place your bet here. Of course, some people didnt want to come all the way here. So theyve that with bookmaker is illegally. Politicians and said that that is difficult. They steal the publics money. We create offtrack betting businesses will promote the public welfare. And so now many states, people can make convenient that at offtrack betting storefronts. Its representative of how much government experiment with gambling has failed. It has been subsidized by the State Government like new york. With stuff on that concept for a moment. The bookies for making so much money that the state said that this is mafia crime and we have to take it over because government is so incompetent. But they will lose money in new york city. Packages shows when government gets into the gambling business how much it ends up being a failed he. They had succeeded offices, a 1300 person workforce is, a fleet of 87 vehicles. Only government can lose money as a bookie. And to keep this conversation going on facebook or twitter, use the hash tag as in march madness and tells what you think. And coming up, buying stocks. Is that gambling . I say it is a form of gambling and i can be the specialist by picking stocks at random. Is it possible that i could pick stocks better from those socalled experts . We will see. The next a mobilize soon be able the next a mobilize soon be able to gamble from bed . When folks in the lower 48 think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Thousands of people here in alaska are working to safely produce more energy. But thats just the start. To produce more from existing wells, we need advanced technology. That means hitech jobs in california ancolorado. The oil moves through one of the Worlds Largest pipelines. Maintaining it means manufacturing jobs in the midwest. Then we transport it with 4 stateoftheart, doublehull tankers. Some of the safest, most advanced ships in the world built in san diego with a 1 billion investment. Across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. And no Energy Company invests more in the u. S. Than bp. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. Your chance to watch full seasons of tvs hottest shows for free with xfinity on demand. Theres romance, face slaps, whatever that is, pirates, helicopters, piratecopters. Argh hmm. Its so huge, its being broadcast on mars. Heroes. Bad guys. Asteroids. Available only on mars. Theres watching. Then theres watchathoning. Your chance to watch full seasons of tvs hottest shows for free with xfinity on demand. Theres romance, face slaps, whatever that is, pirates, helicopters, piratecopters. Argh hmm. Its so huge, its being broadcast on mars. Heroes. Bad guys. Asteroids. Available only on mars. Theres watching. Then theres watchathoning. You want to play some poker . Ripley played . Its not always easy to get all of your friends together. Casinos are usually far away or in the we have this thing called the internet. And so we should be able to gamble with anyone at any time and for a while we could. Websites like poker stars and others offer gambling 24 hours a day. On a friday, three years ago, the department of justice charged besides with Money Laundering because they used u. S. Banks to process transactions. Just eight months later after consumers complained and states asked for clarification about the law, the Justice Department said maybe states may offer Online Gambling to gamblers and their states. To nonnew jersey, delaware, and nevada. And more states probably will as well. The coalition to stop internet gaming. In the history of bad ideas, this has to be one of the worst. Internet gambling. This isnt going to is the casino, this is gambling on your computer, your mobile phone,and arare ive h. They rget the young and the elderly, making it look fun and easy until someone gets in over their head. Someone you know what love could be taken for thousands of dollars. Without ever having to step foot in a casino. It just takes gambling too far. Casinos are so wholesome that you want to set foot in them . We invited his people on the show and they said no. The former congressman now represents a different casino group which says sure, legalize it. To make sure that its regulated properly. What do you mean . All you are going to do is continue these websites to profit and to do well and to build up momentum and get stronger and stronger. That is the idea that people ought to be talking about. The ban on gaming. That sounds great to me. But im suspicious of your group because this is casino back as well and i get the feeling that they are trying to funnel all this gaming activity to the casinos. People can be suspicious on all sides. Thats fine. But lets talk about the way that i see this. To me it is a matter of simple entertainment value for the night. But i look back at what the internet did to music and also to television and film. And they started to stand in the way of the internet and we are really trying to stand in the way of the internet and it didnt work. And all it did was build up momentum to all of these websites the kids loved her in ever sense than the legitimate businesses have been trying to make up for lost time. So youre saying that we let it rip . Im saying that the congress should not and gaming. They should let the states decide, as he said. Three states are currently doing so right now at Different Levels and they are experimenting to some degree. Trying to make sure that it works great but im saying dont stand in the way of the internet. Think to myself i came into the studio using bluebird. They know who i am committed know where to find me. And i decided its okay that they do that. People try to stand in the way that of that technology, but its a good technology. The issue is really that congress shouldnt be banning us. They shouldnt be telling states not to do it. Dont stand in the way of this because if you do youre just going to allow some to build momentum and eventually kill off Good American businesses. Heres what childrens group says about your effor gambling will be an available in every home and bedroom in every dorm room and on every phone in tablet and computer. Everywhere. It sounds scary. That is the whole point of this. To make sure that we can regulated and the kids wont play. They know who i am, they know where i am. The kids are not going to play. The point is that if we dont do it and do it right, we are going to build up this website where there is absolutely no protection whatsoever for kids or for consumers of any type. John when they drive you somewhere, they have a relationship with you. This 15yearold kid can be in his bedroom gambling and gambling site does want is money. They dont care who he is. Will honestly there would be protections in place. I believe that we could do this and do it right if we allow them to regulate it. The continuing these offshore black market sites, it means that they have many protections in place for our kids. John thank you congresswoman. Coming up, it turns out you can always play online poker. Some companies seem to have found a clever way around are dumb law. Th what does everything mean to you . With the quicksilver cash back card from capital one, it means unlimited 1. 5 cash back on everything you purchase, every day. It doesnt mean, everything. As long as you buy it at theas station. It doesnt mean, everything. Unl you hit your cash back limit. It means earn 1. 5 cash back on every purchase, every place, every occasion, all over creation. Thats what everything should mean. So consider. Whats in your wallet . What to play blackjack . Take another card. Another. Another. I one. I can play poker. Slot machines. All of those games is because it is not in america zero ireland or panama. I dont know. I dont care but there are more of them all the time. How did they do that with other sites were stopped . We have naomi from the new york bitcoin center. So it thrives because they pay with bitcoin . To make it is enforced they process the payments for the Online Gambling sites. So it does not use the financial institutions. It makes payments directly to the casino and very little the government can do. It could use diplomatic pressure but it is such an incredible market for Online Gambling bitcoin if they depend on a the dead calling bitcoin pavements it is making gambling safer for those who do it. John i dont even know where this is the market has responded with this type of thing and mathematically proves every shuffling is random still there is complete transparency. John some of the poker sites turned out they were fixing for their friends. Before this technology came into existence so there is the new Technology May get more safer for gamblers. John the payment is instantaneous . You could go one step further it is irreversible. People worry about the charge back fraud a and it bitcoin eliminates the risk of that happening. That is what like wikileaks spinet that was the huge controversy. What the government did was to put pressure on the intermediary and then theyre able to continue with the . 5 million. It is incredible. It is not just to love freedom of speech to allow people to spend the money where they want to. John nevada chairman of the control board talking about any kind of gaming that is simply cannot have been. I was a little shocked because the implications of that but then we dont even plan to but it doesnt get the government can come up with anything they want to be an anything illegal but they dont have to tell the people about it . It is outrageous. I was under the impression it was legal until the government bans it but somewhere along the line things are flipped which is a little scary for society at the moment. John thank you kneale me. The biggest scandal and ischium of all. The state lottery. One way to the level where the odds favor you. He would probably make money john . A total casino. I wish the stock market was as honest when i go to with the regulations they do not have that in the stock market. John he is wrong about this there are very specific regulations in casinos but they offer a terrible odds for the best games craps and blackjack are likely to cost 1 percent every cant roulette will cost every spin 6 . Slot machines are more. There are scandals in the stock market but overtime the averages tend to go up. That is vastly superior to casino betting. That is why charles paid looks soso prosperous and also plays the stock market. First of all, i hate to use the word play ian stock market but i have the business on this side as my livelihood for the last 25 years for the most part making people many in the stock market. John that implies that you helped them to beat the average fan if i threw d