Untitled - witz cultural

366HYPERTEXT 3.0 discussion groups and several virtual gambling casinos whose servers arelocated outside the United States. WagerNet, based in Belize, and Sports International,based in Antigua, permit one to place sports wagers-$50 minimum bet for Sports International-and the Caribbean Casino, which is basedin Turks and Caicos Islands, offers blackjack and lotteries as well as wageringon sports. These establishments escape local American laws against gamblingboth because it takes place in virtual space and because the server lies outsidea boundary that would permit law enforcement. According to William M.Bulkley, "the Justice Department says cyberspace casinos are illegal. But thecompanies' offshore venues may protect them. And authorities will have atough time detecting who's actually betting because many people will be playingthe same games for free" (B1). The effect of cyberspace, in other words,here is the opposite of that observed in the Thomas case: whereas in thepornography case, local authorities (with the assistance of the U.S. postalauthorities) asserted their control over another jurisdiction, in this case the limitsof U.S. sovereignty means that no control is possible. Perhaps the Thomasesshould move offshore. Many spammers have already done so.A decade has passed since the appearance of online casinos, and MattRichtel reports that "a new generation of online services like Betfair hasemerged to allow sports bettors to wager not against the house but directlyagainst each other." Such peer-to-peer betting, which has become popular inEurope, Asia, and Australia, thus far takes two forms: Betfair, a British website,permits would-be bettors to contact each other, whereas Betbug, a newerAmerican Internet service, "is remarkably similar to file-sharing programslike Kazaa and Morpheus, which let people exchange music and other mediaover the Internet. Anyone downloading the Betbug software will be able topropose a wager, then reach out to everyone else on the network to find a takerfor the bet." The Internet services make their money by receiving a small percentageof the winning bet. fohn O'Malia, "an American entrepreneur basedin London," claims that he violates no American laws "because he is not actingas the sports bookmaker by setting the odds or participating in the wager.""What becomes of government in an electronic revolutionl" asks fames K.Glassman, who asserts that "government's regulatory functions could weaken,or vanish. It's already a cinch on the Internet to get around the rules; censorship,telecommunications restrictions and patent laws are easily evaded.Even tax collection could become nearly impossible when all funds are transferredby electronic impulses that can be disguised." Glassman describesthe cyberpunk science-fiction worlds of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, andNeal Stephenson, in which the new information technologies prevent na-