Illegal gambling businesses & organized crime: an analysis of federal convictions

Illegal gambling operations have been alleged to support organized crime and victimize participants, rather than benefit them. This is said to occur through cheating in the games provided, defrauding the government of tax revenue, and funding other illicit and criminal activities. What has been missing is a systematic analysis of actual cases involving illegal gambling businesses to determine precisely who is involved, how these businesses operate, the nature of the threat posed, and the law enforcement response to it. The analysis reported here examines all federal convictions involving operation of illegal gambling businesses during a single year. There were more than 80 persons charged and convicted of participation in illegal gambling businesses, centered around 40 distinct enterprises. The results indicate that illegal gambling businesses in the United States are long-term operations consisting of four general types, and that enforcement of existing laws, particularly related to illegal online sports betting, are not working effectively.     

A rent-seeking model of TELs

Tax and expenditure limits or TELs are constitutional or statutory constraints on the fiscal powers of government. Since the taxpayer revolt beginning in the late 1970s, TELs have been introduced in twenty-three states. In recent years a number of studies attempting to test the impact of TELs have found little evidence that TELs significantly reduced the growth of state government. In this study we challenge the implicit Leviathan model that underlies most of these studies, and offer an alternative rent-seeking model. Econometric tests provide support for this rentseeking model, and indicate that TELs have been significant in reducing the growth of state government, at least in the short run. “... the very principle of constitutional government requires it to be assumed, that political power will be abused to promote the particular purpose of the holder; not because it always is so, but because such is the natural tendency of things, to guard against which is the especial use of free institutions”     

64% Majority rule in Ducal Venice: Voting for the Doge

A recent result of Caplin and Nalebuff (1988) demonstrates that, under certain conditions on individual preferences and their distribution across society, super-majority rule performs well as a social decision rule. If the required super-majority is chosen appropriately, the rule yields a unique winner and voter cycles cannot occur. The voting procedure for electing a Doge in medieval Venice, developed in 1268, employed a super-majority requirement agreeing with the Caplin and Nalebuff formula. We present a brief history of the Venetian political institutions, show how the rule was employed, and argue that it contributed to the remarkable centuries-long political stability of Venice.