Internet Gambling

Special interest groups, lobbyists, and religious moralists have sought and semi-banned US online gambling (I say semi because the UIGEA - Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which is basically an update to the Wire Act, doesn't actually make it unlawful to gamble over the internet; it targets financial institutes).

Financially speaking, simple regulation instead of banning (and imposing on citizens choices), to a billion dollar industry would have been better for our economy.   It is also contradictory to ban ONLY certain kinds of gambling, but allow horse race betting and state run lotteries - aren't these too, gambling?

With the United States being the largest gambling nation (80%), our economic slow down will adversely affect gambling meccas like Costa Rica.   But, I have read somewhere that in times of economic slow down, gambling among the masses increases (I have also read that being against gambling is the morally correct choice.  However, I am opposed to anything that takes my freedom of choice away). 

It is ironic that I take this position, as Clinton favors gambling economically, yet Obama disfavors it morally.