The Internet offers inexpensive and simple access to a variety of gambling services, carrying competition to an industry that has long operated under extremely preventive licensing practices. Thanks to the Internet, gamblers no longer have to hurry to Las Vegas to play the slots, drive to the nearest authorized track to play the horses, or walk to the corner store to play the state lotto. Customers can now play those and other games at home by means of the many Internet sites--well over 100 and growing'that offer gambling services.

Americans have by now shown that they support the emerging Internet gambling industry. Analysts work out that of the $1 billion in revenues that Internet gambling generated in 1997, about $600 million came from the United States. Online casinos will have international revenues of some $7.9 billion by the year 2001, $3.5 billion of it coming from U.S. consumers.

Because the Internet offers bettors with an instant access to overseas gambling sites and virtual safety from examination, online gambling will grow in spite of what legislators and prudes want. Futility, though, rarely bars bad public policy. So it remains quite doubtful how rapidly consumers will take pleasure in legal Internet access to new gaming services.