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Comment by ikeboy | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't be against a law that prevented people from gambling large amounts of money unless they could prove the money was theirs. (ETA: whew, a quadruple negative.) The IRS could provide a form that confirmed that someone reported X amount of income, and you should only be allowed to gamble X-Y for some nominal value of Y. This wouldn't be that hard to enforce (the time isn't too significant when you're dealing with large amounts of money), and I don't think there's much public interest in being able to gamble unlimited amounts of money and keep it secret from the government.

Is there some problem with the above? Is there a compelling reason this would harm civil liberties that I'm missing? It's not worse than banning gambling altogether, and should prevent most embezzling or gambling borrowed funds.

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I have a huge horse in this fight, because I work for an online casino/slot machine manufacture. The following is my opinion, bl.a

I know at least one physical casino where the tax authorities are very happy looking the other way, as patrons gamble tons of dirty cash. They do look very intently on the income and track it carefully because there is a percentage fee on gambling. Presumably that is why people are allowed to gamble freely.

I can come up with a few arguments against your idea - on the balance it is sound, but what should the limit be on "nominal"?

I can go to the cinema on a weekly basis, which with ticket prices, popcorn and other concessions can be quite an expensive hobby, or I can hit the casinos a couple times a year where I could spend the same amount of money - it is all entertainment and who is to say one is better for me than the other?

I don't know any country that has a limit on how much alcohol you can buy at a time (most have age restrictions, some have time and place restrictions, some won't sell you if you are already drunk), yet there are alcoholics in any place. Should we ban or limit alcohol to some nominal amount? If not, why should we treat gambling differently?

That said, I am all about making it easy for people to see how much they have spent, and of course be honest upfront.

> Should we ban or limit alcohol to some nominal amount? If not, why should we treat gambling differently?

No, because nobody steals $4 million to buy alcohol. Alcoholics don't tend to be spending anywhere near the numbers in OP.

Even if nominal was 0, the proposal would still prevent stealing or borrowed money being gambled. It's not an essential part of the proposal.

If tax authorities are overlooking theft being gambled because they get a cut, then incentives have not been lined up properly. Theft causes a negative externality greater than the thief's gain, so society should not want theft, and if it does then there's a problem.

However some alcoholics spend so much time getting drunk/being drunk they can't do their jobs and so end up on the street.

I don't object that nobody should gamble on stolen or borrowed money (though some hedge funds may disagree), but that is different from having some nominal limit. For one how about savings? How about retired people with too much time and large pensions? How about saving up for a honeymoon in vegas?

What about the alcoholic who drinks himself half to death and ends up on life support with no insurance? The kind that literally cost hundreds of thousands in medical expenses to keep alive for another day.

Why would tax authorities be happy to capture the tax on a few percent of illicit earnings rather than be able to take down a big RICO evader?

As it was explained to me it was a relatively simple way to recapture some additional tax funds. Also this wasn't the US, Denmark do prosecute criminals, but we don't have anything like RICO.

By RICO I just meant "big cases involving major criminal enterprises". (And I should have said "a big tax evader under RICO" rather than imply that they were evading RICO itself...)

RICO statutes sound like a great legal tool.

They have been abused. They need to be amended.

We picture they are being used to go after Mob types.

They use them whenever they can.

How do I know? I almost got into trouble giving my parents a bit over $10,000 cash years ago.

A bank teller turned me into the IRS. Bank employees can be awarded money for turning in any amount of money "they feel" might be suspect. It doesn't even have to be over $10,000. Yes--a bank teller. Anyone in that bank.

Got a call from the IRS. They mentioned I could get my parents in trouble. They stated this is a "curtesy call", but it scared the chit out of me.

They mentioned the RICO statues--in a joking way. I went to the library to look up RICO statutes. Yea, this is hilarious?

I sold a car--I restored, and gave my mom money she could use.

Never in a million years, did I think she could get in legal trouble. I still remember paying a useless lawyer $500 at 5 a.m. to basically say, "give me a ten thousand dollar retainer." I said, "but what have I don't illegailly?" He paused. "Well nothing?" I walked out of his office, thinking this is a weird system. I still get his lousy Christmas cards.

Yes--this stuff happens all the time.

I feel like there is more to this. Can't you just show them the bill of sale?

This is a common reply to any complaint about an authority. "I feel like there is more to this" is not a very charitable interpretation of a claim, and is basically invoking the just world fallacy. I don't know anything about the OP's case, but in general ignoring the negative experiences of others is kind of what resulted in both the BLM movement and Trump's election. As a society, we really need to work on taking people seriously when they say something is wrong.

I didn't end on that point though. I am seeking clarification. If the answer is "I don't have a bill of sale, I said I sold it for $500 bucks to get around paying taxes on it" then this story seems a little more reasonable. If you accept all complaints about a individual or institution as gospel Donald Trump and Bill Clinton are both serial rapist pedophiles and Hillary Clinton is a reptile creature from the 19th moon of Zlarg.

> I have a huge horse in this fight

I love this mixed analogy.

> I don't know any country that has a limit on how much alcohol you can buy at a time (most have age restrictions, some have time and place restrictions, some won't sell you if you are already drunk),

Similar, but different, the UK does restrict the amount of non-prescription pain killers you can buy. I once tried to buy five packets of Nurofen (Ibuprofen) from a supermarket and was restricted to just two packets. I simply went to the next supermarket up the road and bought two more packets.

If there was a limit on how much alcohol people could buy at one time, wouldn't they just do the same thing?

The U.K. really restricts ibuprofen this way? In the U.S. I think these restrictions have been applied only to methamphetamine precursors (pseudoephedrine and maybe others), while opiates have been made prescription-only.

And in the US you have to present your ID for pseudoephedrine which is presumably getting linked to some database to prevent you from walking down the street to get two more boxes there.

OTC analgesics are a common suicide (attempt) method. It's just suicide prevention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmd9HUkOQHk

Well, the SEC [kind of] already does this with accredited investors :)

Can you be accredited based on embezzled or borrowed money? Will it bring attention that will uncover it?

It's self accreditation, the party taking the investment gives the investor a questionnaire, and then says ok looks good to me.

The other casino, where market participants pay for the gamblers' losses AND gains.

What happens when I show up from overseas to gamble? How do I prove I am from overseas and not just someone that isn't bringing their IRS form?

Passport? I guess this would be hard to regulate, but even if foreigners were excluded from the regulation my proposal would still help some people.

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