[Gerben42]

I agree completely as this, like bridge, is a game of skill. However I can understand why they want to ban internet gambling - there are many people who are addicted to gambling and if they can do so on the internet there is probably no control at all.

[keylime]

Maybe the casinos being offshore and thusly not giving Uncle Sam tax revenue is the reason?

[mike777]

keylime, on Apr 24 2006, 01:54 PM, said:

Maybe the casinos being offshore and thusly not giving Uncle Sam tax revenue is the reason?

All most all of them want to pay US taxes, in fact many are listed on the USA stock exchanges.

I do understand the argument against gambling which is one reason I have hated legal lotteries all these years. With all that said the people have voted their pocketbooks. At least get the government out of the gambling business and back into the tax business.

[hrothgar]

I have some very mixed feelings about a lot of these issues.

From my perspective, trying to ban drugs / booze / prostitution / whatever tends to cause a lot more problems than it solves. More significantly, it singificantly increases the costs associated with some individuals obsessive compulsive disorder and transfer many of these costs from the individual to society. The classic example of this is drug prohibition, which simultaneous creates a major crime problems and causes society to spend large amounts of resources on drug interdiction programs, prisons, and the like. I'd very much prefer to see us legalize drugs and spend whatever resources are necessary on drug treatment programs.

With this said and done, I think that there are some big problems associated with applying a laissez faire capitalist model to online poker. There are a hell of a lot of ways for people to cheat a poker.

At the simpliest level, you can run into some very real problems where two players at the same table are colluding with one another. For the more conspiracy minded amongst us, imagine if the poker site itself was colluding with shill players. FOr those who have "faith" in human fallibility, consider what might happen if a poker site implemented a game using a flawed random number generator.

Online bridge for money runs into many of the same problems. However, there is an enormous difference in the popularity of the two games. I'm not worried about organized gangs getting together to try to break the BBO bridge site. I know for a fact that some key memebrs of the MIT Blackjack team are working on the poker "problem".

I think that it would be a big mistake for the US government to sanction online poker without also regulating this area. You probably want to create something equivalent to the Nevada gaming commision.

At the end of the day, the entire issue will probably boil down to a question of bridges. Can existing gaming concerns like Las Vegas and Indian tribes donate more money to Congress than the online poker promoters?

[keylime]

The same logic applies to some of the states here that has banned bridge for money. I can't see how playing bridge for money is gambling.

[jdonn]

Gerben42, on Apr 24 2006, 01:40 PM, said:

I agree completely as this, like bridge, is a game of skill. However I can understand why they want to ban internet gambling - there are many people who are addicted to gambling and if they can do so on the internet there is probably no control at all.

I can't even begin to understand why a government would think this way. If a country has a problem with too many people being overweight, should they take cookies and ice cream off the shelves? These things don't work for three reasons. It punishes the vast innocent majority. It is not prohibitively difficult for addicted gamblers to find other places to gamble. And it is trying to cure the symptom instead of the disease.

I seriously doubt "existing gaming concerns" have any problem with online poker, they probably love it. It has caused their business to skyrocket. I would never play poker at casinos as I occasionally do if I did not pick it up first on the internet, and there must be millions of players with the same viewpoint.

[mike777]

Well I think the issue is sort of like human cloning.

Once they can do it should they allow it just because you can do it offshore?
Just because it can be done underground is not a sound argument for allowing and in fact encouraging unlimited use of anything.

[Gerben42]

Quote

Well I think the issue is sort of like human cloning.

Once they can do it should they allow it just because you can do it offshore?
Just because it can be done underground is not a sound argument for allowing and in fact encouraging unlimited use of anything.

No but if you allow it you take it out of the underground. Legalizing soft drugs in the Netherlands has helped many, but it has not helped the criminals.

Is there need to heat up the discussion and mention human cloning. But you are probably right that there will be a company that will essentially BUY some small country (at the moment the country with the smallest GDP has a GDP of $63M according to Wikipedia) and do it there...

[mike777]

"No but if you allow it you take it out of the underground. Legalizing soft drugs in the Netherlands has helped many, but it has not helped the criminals.



If you are saying legalizing drugs in the Netherlands has been more plus then minus, I would like to see more facts and hear from the other side.


With all this said, in the USA the people have voted with their pocketbooks on the subject of gambling. The argument that persuades me is the one the one of the majority voters, I do not think this debate is won on the issue of Morals or "better" for the USA.

[luke warm]

mike777, on Apr 24 2006, 02:06 PM, said:

At least get the government out of the gambling business and back into the tax business.

hahahaha

i'd prefer to see no ban and no gov't control over not only poker but all things internet... but i think the internet is destined to go the way of most things... once the gov't gets its greedy hooks in, anything that can be taxed will be taxed, even the time you spend online (in some way, i think this will be done)

[Cascade]

It doesn't make sense to me why some games of skill can be played for money and others cannot.

Why is poker gambling and golf not?

(not meaning to pick on golf)

[Cascade]

Jlall, on Apr 25 2006, 11:47 AM, said:

Cascade, on Apr 24 2006, 05:32 PM, said:

It doesn't make sense to me why some games of skill can be played for money and others cannot.

The US government has classified poker as a game of chance, not skill. The states that money bridge is barred in have classified BRIDGE as a game of chance.

Who cares?

A game of skill does not become a game of chance by decree.

What sort of numbskulls made this determination?

Why hasn't it been overturned? Surely a law that states something that is patently untrue cannot be applied. Wouldn't they lose on appeal? Or has no one tested this?

[pigpenz]

Cascade, on Apr 24 2006, 06:54 PM, said:

.

What sort of numbskulls made this determination?

Why hasn't it been overturned? Surely a law that states something that is patently untrue cannot be applied. Wouldn't they lose on appeal? Or has no one tested this?

We have to look no further than Bush and Cheney and the Religous right who support them. They have gotten the US in to a war bases on things that are patently untrue. so how in the heck are they gonna know anything about poker

[Cascade]

pigpenz, on Apr 25 2006, 02:55 PM, said:

Cascade, on Apr 24 2006, 06:54 PM, said:

.

What sort of numbskulls made this determination? 

Why hasn't it been overturned?  Surely a law that states something that is patently untrue cannot be applied.  Wouldn't they lose on appeal?  Or has no one tested this?

We have to look no further than Bush and Cheney and the Religous right who support them. They have gotten the US in to a war bases on things that are patently untrue. so how in the heck are they gonna know anything about poker

If its a game of luck then perhaps they would like a game with me. After all I will only have as much chance as them of winning.

[boris3161]

Quote

Legalizing soft drugs in the Netherlands has helped many, but it has not helped the criminals.

On a point of information, as I understand it, drugs have not been legalized in the Netherlands, just decriminalized - there is a difference.

The thinking is that it is better to help drug users than to make criminals out of them. In practice and simplifying horribly, most Dutch citizens are very conservative but they do not believe the law should regulate individual behavior. This is a very different approach to law making in the US (or UK) - and tends to make the boast of "The Land of the Free" sound rather hollow, IMHO.

[luke warm]

pigpenz, on Apr 24 2006, 09:55 PM, said:

Cascade, on Apr 24 2006, 06:54 PM, said:

.

What sort of numbskulls made this determination? 

Why hasn't it been overturned?  Surely a law that states something that is patently untrue cannot be applied.  Wouldn't they lose on appeal?  Or has no one tested this?

We have to look no further than Bush and Cheney and the Religous right who support them. They have gotten the US in to a war bases on things that are patently untrue. so how in the heck are they gonna know anything about poker

right... not to mention they've caused global warming by failing to sign the kyoto agreement, which led directly to hurricanes rita and katrina which led to thousands of illegal aliens working on the gulf coast which led to an uproar in congress which leads to immigration legislation which leads v. fox of mexico to write huffy letters to ambassadors, etc etc

[barmar]

Yes, the problem is that the Religious Right sets the Republican agenda these days. They feel that the government should be the "nanny" to the populace, and their puritanical values are forced on the rest of us. As a result we have gambling prohibitions, and excessive reactions to sexual stuff on TV and radio (the Janet Jackson fiasco).

Don't try to apply logic (e.g. poker/bridge vs. golf) to it. If government decisions were based on logic, would smoking tobacco be legal while smoking marijuana isn't? The choices of what to ban are based on a number of other factors: tradition (tobacco smoking goes back longer), business (the tobacco industry is responsible for a big chunk of the US income and employment), class differences (pot smokers are a less respected class than cigarette smokers), voter sentiment (how many legislators have lost an election because they opposed pot smoking?), lobbying (the tobacco industry has a huge lobby), and what they can get away with (they tried to ban alcohol in the 1920's -- it failed and they had to repeal Prohibition).