[JLOGIC]

http://www.foxbusine.../#ixzz1JcgWQNic

good job US government!

[JLOGIC]

And pokerstars/ftp have blocked americans from real money games.

[matmat]

There might be some interesting legal questions arising from all of this...
http://www.techdirt....-indicted.shtml

it's funny that Wall Street is still allowed to gamble, though, isn't it?

[Phil]

Strange. I read an interview in Forbes yesterday with Steve Wynn who happens to be great friends with Harry Reid and who also happened to just do a 180 and form a JV with Pokerstars.

[MickyB]

Unsurprisingly, he has made that a 360

[heyrocky]

I keep thinking about a Daily Show bit from a while back on dealing with the deficit. One of the punch lines: "Legalize It!"

[Phil]

heyrocky, on 2011-April-15, 22:30, said:

I keep thinking about a Daily Show bit from a while back on dealing with the deficit. One of the punch lines: "Legalize It!"

Unfortunately before you Legalize It, you need to Ban It and then perhaps Nationalize It.

[helene_t]

I work for a betting company that sells sports bets online. We do Australian football (ever heard of that?) but we don't do any North American sports. For the simple reason that people in the US are not allowed to bet online.

So I would say that at least it's a sign of consistency that they ban poker.

[JLOGIC]

Why are sports bets and poker the same? Do you believe that it would be a sign of consistency if they shut down money bridge online?

[Cascade]

Quote

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

[Winstonm]

Quote

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

The Braves at home are -$2.20.

[Cascade]

Winstonm, on 2011-April-16, 16:59, said:

The Braves at home are -$2.20.

lol

[helene_t]

JLOGIC, on 2011-April-16, 16:04, said:

Why are sports bets and poker the same? Do you believe that it would be a sign of consistency if they shut down money bridge online?

Yes because the whole point is that the nanny state needs to protect gambling-addicted suckers against evil card sharks like you, Justin

Some say that bridge doesn't count as gambling because it is more skill based than poker (and sports bets) but I am not sure this is very pronounced for non-duplicate, and besides, a skill-based game is arguably worse than a pure gambling game as the suckers are long-term losers. Maybe the argument is that the suckers will know that they suck at skill based games so they stay away from them.

Then there is the issue of money laundy. It is quite easy to use money bridge for money laudry: your opium-financed paypal account in Gibraltar links to the username jlallgibraltar while your clean paypal account in USA links to user name jlallUSA. Now jlallgibraltar plays against jlallUSA and play deliberately bad so the money get transfered to jlallUSA who can prove to the FBI that he just won the money on BBO.

It is more difficult to wash money using sports bets. To wash a million bucks you might set up 10 accounts using 10 different fake identity credit cards, place 100000 bucks on odds 10 events, and win on one of the bets (you can eliminate the variance by bidding on complementary events of course). Then you tell the FBI that the fake identity that won was actually you while the 9 identities that lost you have never heard of. One problem with this is that you can't place odds higher than appr. 100 bucks at our system, and setting many bets won't work since they are uncorrelated. So you would need 10000 different fake identities to wash a million bucks this way. Maybe the FBI will be suspicious if you tell them about 1000 different identities that all turned out to be you.

Disclaimer: I am not really serious about this. In fact I am pretty sure that no major criminal organization uses BBO for their money laundry

[kenberg]

Of course we only need to launder our opium profits if we make the opium trade illegal.

[y66]

The problem with internet gambling is figuring out how to tax it. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

[Cascade]

y66, on 2011-April-17, 08:42, said:

The problem with internet gambling is figuring out how to tax it. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

Come to NZ there is no tax on Gambling here.

[chasetb]

My problem is why are they trying to tax poker online? What is the difference between playing poker online, and going to a casino to play poker in person? Are casinos taking money from people who make a profit? (I've never played poker at a table in a casino, so I don't know, but I assume they don't). If they do, then I am disgusted; if they don't, then why is the US government worried about money they aren't going to get (and don't deserve)??? It's not like the people who play for money online is suddenly going to start playing slot machines or the lottery.

Rather than sticking their noses in places they don't belong, the people in Washington should start working on more important issues, like cutting spending and cutting some of the tax breaks to balance the federal budget! I have a great example of how to save money - it currently costs more to produce a US penny or nickel than that penny or nickel is worth. Cut back or stop altogether on making them, and you are showing a profit.

[JLOGIC]

Gambling winnings are taxed in USA, including money you win at a casino. The casino doesn't tax you, the government does.

Speaking of money laundering, time for an online poker site that takes bitcoins!

[hrothgar]

chasetb, on 2011-April-17, 12:03, said:

Rather than sticking their noses in places they don't belong, the people in Washington should start working on more important issues, like cutting spending and cutting some of the tax breaks to balance the federal budget! I have a great example of how to save money - it currently costs more to produce a US penny or nickel than that penny or nickel is worth. Cut back or stop altogether on making them, and you are showing a profit.

You do realize that the government doesn't manufacture coins so they can sell them as a source of revenue...
They leave that to the Franklin Mint.

The government produces coins and greenbacks to provide a standard medium of exchange and facilitate commerce.

[Fluffy]

You can move to face2face poker I guess. I tried my first f2f poker tournament today for 100+10€ buy in deep stack, before all players had seated on the very very first hand I got AA, and someone reraised my little raise (remember deep stack) all in, showed 88 and he got straight on the river. Epic tournament.

At least I am the only player of the tournament who can say he made zero mistakes