Saturday, March 7, 1998; Page A18

WILL THE ARGUMENT over Internet gambling follow the pattern of the argument over Internet pornography? The announcement of the first federal charges against an online gambling operation, brought in New York against 14 American citizens who own or manage online sports-betting businesses offshore, revives the question of how the availability of an activity on the Internet changes the way you regulate it. Gambling online, like viewing pornography online, is highly private and convenient; this sharpens some problems while removing others. Addicts or unbalanced people have easier access, kids have easier access, authorities have less ability to track it or avert fraud. But effects on neighborhoods are almost eliminated, which bolsters an argument that this is private behavior, up to localities to ban or permit as they see fit.

As with most Internet issues, the question is whether to apply or update or replace existing law. The New York charges were brought under a 1961 federal law that forbids interstate betting on sports events by use of a "wire communication facility." At the time, this of course meant telephones, and the transactions were legal if the bets were legal in both the sending and the receiving location.

When the "wire communications facility" is the Net, two big things change: All transactions are potentially interstate, and all sorts of bets besides sports bets become feasible, from video poker to virtual casinos. A proposal by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) passed the Judiciary Committee by voice vote -- and a similar one is pending in the House. Under the Kyl bill, all online gambling would be illegal -- not just sports betting -- and not just for bettors and bet-takers who live where gambling is illegal, but everywhere. Some existing forms of "intranet" network, where access is controlled or limited locally, are protected by the bill as a nod to local rights, but most are swept away by the inherent difficulty of controlling location once a site is on the Net -- regardless of local law. Is the inherently greater reach of this new way of betting a good enough reason to step beyond the current law's balance between federal interstate control of gambling and localities' possible interest in allowing it? To decide, the society will need to weigh carefully the reasons gambling has been discouraged in the first place, by law and other means.