Yet another sad and embarassing day for the U.S.

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=2lazy2pee]
It’s American politics as usual. It has to with the president not having the power of line-item veto, or being able to veto specific provisions of a bill. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president can only pass an entire bill or veto it. This lets many pet projects get sneaked into law by attaching them to another bill. Representatives look out for one another. One will introduce a bill and add another rep’s pet project to it, for which the second rep can deny responsibilty of it passing and another representative will return the favor. The President can, of course veto the bill, but AFAIK Bush has only used the veto once in his 5+ years in office. And of course, Congress has the power to over-ride vetoes. In June, the House of Representatives passed a bill, 247-172, to give the president a six year line-item veto power, but this has not yet been discussed in the Senate.
[/QUOTE]

It depends on what you mean by the line item veto. When peopel talk about the line item veto, they are usually talking about Presidential authority to veto appropriations riders. If you are talking about a more general line item veto, theni it has about as much to do with the president’s lack of a line item veto as it does with campaign finance reform or any one of a dozen better solution to the problem. It takes a majority vote to pass a bill, it takes a supermajority to override a veto. It gets a lot tougher to craft compromises when you can selectively veto provisions of the bill (how would you ever be sure that the protective measures that made you comfortable with the rest of a bill would survive a line item veto).

22

[QUOTE=Floyd13]
This is wrong.

First of all, online gambling should be legalized and regulated by the states. Second of all, it IS fairly easy to prove that the odds are falling the way they should. There are tens of thousands of people like me who play everyday and track every hand we play in a database. I could show you millions of hands that play out over the long term exactly like they should. If any site was adjusting the odds to allow the fish to win or lose at a higher rate than normal, we would know about it.

And regarding fraud in B&M casinos? You have no idea the kind of cheating and fraud goes on there. In fact it might be even easier to cheat in a real casino than a virtual one. Not to mention look what goes on in the stock market. Nothing could be more corrupt than that, well except of course the U.S. Congress.
[/QUOTE]

Why not get a real job instead of fleecing suckers? Most good poker players I know would make more money as some sort of professional (they’re certainly smart enough). I suspect most of these guys are more than a little addicted to poker and the feeling of superiority they feel when they consistently take someone else’s money.

Collussion is a MUCH easier among poker players in an online setting. That’s cheating. Online gambling needs much more regulation than B&M casinos in Vegas, it also need to be much more effectively taxed.

23

Two ignorant arguments form this thread:

Extraorinarily unlikely. The B&M gaming companies would love nothing more than for online gambling to become totally legitimate because they are in the best position out of anyone to profit from such a situation. Even failing that, however, the status quo is preferable to an effective ban. A rising tide raises all ships – the boom in online gaming brings more people to their doors, as well.

Within the poker community, those who think that online poker might be rigged are rightly considered to be the Tinfoil Hat People. There is no evidence whatsoever that online gaming is corrupt in that way. It would make no sense for these companies to risk killing the golden goose, and any anomylous results would be trivially easy to spot with literally billions of hands being stored independently on hundreds of thousands of computers around the world.

24

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Do you have a cite that online gambling is in fact fraught with fraud, to an extent greater than bricks-and-mortar casinos?

Most online gambling is through the most popular sites. What conceivable reason would they have to cheat? An expose would destroy the site.

And why is it hard to tax virtual casinos? It is also hard to tax other online businesses? Should they ban Amazon because you’re less likely to be ripped off by a bricks-and-mortar bookstore?
[/QUOTE]

IIRC most of these online casinos are in jurisdictions without tax treaties with the USA (AKA tax havens). They do not share income information with the USA and often do not require it of their resident corporations on any international business. So you could make a million dollars on these sites and never get taxed on it.

Collusion is a real problem with online poker.

I haven’t seen any online casinoes of fixing odds or anything but I have seen collusion.

25

With that out of the way, I just want to say that this is a very sad day for me. I had held (faint) out hope over the weekend that this legislation wouldn’t be too effective – that there would be simple workarounds, and that gaming sites would more or less ignore the bill.

Last night, though, PartyGaming, the industry leader, announced that it was pulling out of the U.S. market. It’s hard to imagine that the other major sites won’t follow suit. Even assuming that dilligent players will find away around the law, online poker just became a lot less profitbale; the casual players who make profit possible won’t care enough to find their way to the tables.

Unlike most pro or semi-pro poker players, I’m not unsympathetic to the notion that professional gambling is a pretty worthless calling. However, keep in mind that for every punk kid who wants nothing more than to live off the mistakes of bad card players, there is a guy who’s playing poker to put himself (or his kids) through graduate school. And, of course, there are millions of Americans who just enjoy playing the occasional hand of poker (or placing the occasional wager on a ball game) at home.

. . . this may or may not pass, but just thinking about the Republican rhetoric about the need for ‘small government’ right now makes me want to do violent things to them.

26

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
I had held (faint) out hope over the weekend that this legislation wouldn’t be too effective – that there would be simple workarounds, and that gaming sites would more or less ignore the bill.
[/QUOTE]
It is my understanding that the bill puts the responsibility on the credit card companies; if they process transactions from online gambling sites, they are violating the law. The only thing the gambling sites have to ignore is the abrupt shut-off of their revenue stream; it is out of their hands.

27

[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
It is my understanding that the bill puts the responsibility on the credit card companies; if they process transactions from online gambling sites, they are violating the law. The only thing the gambling sites have to ignore is the abrupt shut-off of their revenue stream; it is out of their hands.
[/QUOTE]

Your understanding is mistaken. I don’t feel up to hashing out all the details (which are still uncertain in some important respects), but a few points: the bill targets banks and electronic fund transfer companies. It was already very difficult to fund a gaming account with a credit card. In the past, executives from foreign-based online gaming companies have occasionally faced legal problems upon setting foot on U.S. soil, and this bill could only herald more problems for them. In fact, extradition would become a non-trivial possibility in some cases, depending on the foreign locale in question (the U.K. would be amenable to our requests, Antigua would tell us to shove it, etc.).

Also note that banks and large gaming sites have a real interest in staying as legitimate as possible and avoiding any potential hassles with the U.S. government. Their reaction to the legislation is likely, in many cases, to be even more severe than what might be strictly required by the bill.

28

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
Your understanding is mistaken. I don’t feel up to hashing out all the details (which are still uncertain in some important respects), but a few points: the bill targets banks and electronic fund transfer companies.
[/QUOTE]
I will defer to your superior knowledge, but my point stands; whether it is the credit card companies, the banks or the electronic fund transfer companies, it is not up to the gambling sites to evade the law by simply ignoring it. It is in any case out of their hands.

29

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
Extraorinarily unlikely. The B&M gaming companies would love nothing more than for online gambling to become totally legitimate because they are in the best position out of anyone to profit from such a situation. Even failing that, however, the status quo is preferable to an effective ban. A rising tide raises all ships – the boom in online gaming brings more people to their doors, as well.
[/QUOTE]
Can you back this up? I’ve not the ability to track the lobbying dollars supporting this bill, but I can certainly see U.S. gaming interests supporting this. I’m not sure that there is direct causation between the rise in online gambling and casino revenue, but I’ll keep an open mind. My first instinct is that any money not spent gambling not spent on casino gambling is viewed as a loss by the gaming industry. On the other hand, I can also see how playing and practicing online might also lead some to move towards true head-to-head competition.

I can envision a two-step process by U.S. gaming interests, the first being to shut out the foreign players, then getting a Congressionally-blessed version of their own going. All they need do is hold out the carrot of increased tax revenue to their representatives, and Congress will follow along like the lobbyist lapdogs they are. As for Frist’s statements, like other Congressmen and women, he will tailor his remarks for maximum impact to his audience. I sometimes wonder if these people truly have an opinion of their own.

30

[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor]
Financial profit.

Many original customers (not all) will be unconvinced of cheating, & keep playing at the site.

And if the site is “destroyed”, so what? A B&M casio with a destroyed rep from cheating still has to pay its overhead: the hotel, bar, insurance, etc. A Virtual Casino can be switched to another web addy, with a new name, & start all over, with the new customers all unaware.

[/QUOTE]

Fuck but you’re clueless. The most popular of the gambling sites have been around for nearly a decade. There is so much money to be made running a clean site that you would have to be the biggest fool on Earth to risk that by cheating.

31

What about the animosity between Harrah’s and the .com poker sites during the WSOP? Harrah’s made every player put tape over the .com part of any advertising. And from what I gathered from the players there, it was Harrah’s that was insisting on this.

Players from the US talk about playing real money poker on the internet duing the broadcast of the event, so it’s out in the open that they are playing on .com sites. No surprise there, but the B&M casino’s insistance that no .com advertising be displayed in it’s tournament seems to indicate that the relationship is at least a little strained.

I know that the poker sites never advertise the .com versions on US TV, just the play money .net versions. I’m not convinced that a player wearing a shirt with a .com shirt or hat being on TV would be illegal. You can’t advertise cigarettes on TV, but AFAIK there were no Marlboro shirts taped up.

Anecdotally, the card dealers said it was because the B&Ms have to pay tax on their revenues, the .coms don’t, and there’s the source of the animosity. I would think that the .coms would have to pay taxes someplace. While I can see where the government would like to get that tax revenue, I don’t see why the US casinos would care. Many have had to enlarge their card rooms to accomodate the new poker players.

32

[QUOTE=D_Odds]
Can you back this up?
[/quote]

No, actually. Normally I’d suggest looking at the movement U.S. gaming stocks to gauge the industry’s reaction to the bill, but those stocks are being inflated today because Harrah’s, the largest U.S. gaming corporation, is currently considering a buyout offer at $81/share, which was 22% above market price at the time of the offer.

Admittedly, my opinion is based mostly on my personal experience. When it comes to poker, online gaming has been an undeniable boon – there are many times more poker players filling the hotels and the poker rooms then there were a decade ago (and it’s not like these players don’t also play blackjack and craps). OTOH, I’m sure the direct effect on slots, blackjack, etc. has been more mixed – some people will get a taste for gambling online that might not otherwise have been prospective customers, and some prospective customers will decide to gamble at home rather than at the casino.

That’s certainly a possibility, but I think the straightforward explanation is more likely: legalization of online gaming in the U.S. must be a long-term goal of theirs, and this legislation is just one more obstacle to overcome. Unless the immediate effects of the legislation are much more positive than I imagine, I just don’t see them being better than indifferent about it.

33

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
Extraorinarily unlikely. The B&M gaming companies would love nothing more than for online gambling to become totally legitimate because they are in the best position out of anyone to profit from such a situation. Even failing that, however, the status quo is preferable to an effective ban. A rising tide raises all ships – the boom in online gaming brings more people to their doors, as well.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think I agree with this at all. For the traditional giants of the B&M gambling world to be natural winners at the online game would run contrary to the examples of pretty much every other industry to have gone online thus far. Save commonalities of finance (in which real casinos hardly have a monopoly on skill) the talents required to run a successful online casino are pretty different. Providing a pleasing software user experience that is both rich yet easily grasped is very different to running a good entertainment facility; providing methods for users to interact outside the scope of the games is a non-trivial problem and again has little relationship to running a real-world casino. The games are well-established, and can be programmed once to spec rather than requiring skilled professionals to constantly run them. Add to this the fact that in pretty much no other industry have the entrenched leaders shown the swiftness or vision to move online in a timely or sensible fashion, choosing instead to protect what they viewed as their “real” businesses, and I think you’ve got a very persuasive argument that the real-world casinos are in fact not in a position to flourish online.

Look at arguably the world’s premier online sports betting service, Betfair. It owes nothing to traditional gambling outlets, and has seemingly outmanoeuvred them all by divesting itself of pretty much all risk through bet-matching, meaning it can take lower margins and provide a better gambling experience than any of the old giants thought possible. It’s a positively brilliant idea, and yet one which not only did the incumbents not have, I don’t think they ever would have had it, so strong is the inertia of a large, elderly business.

I’m really struggling to think of a customer-oriented example in which the previous incumbents have come through the rise of the internet with their lead intact. That’s what disruptive technologies do; they disrupt. We can argue whether it might be rational for existing casinos to move online (I think it would have been a good idea), but the reality seems to be that most of them haven’t, and that it is therefore too late. Unless they can get the online version banned, of course.

34

You’re absolutely correct that they would face stiff competition, but it’s not a zero sum game. Do you think Barnes & Noble wishes online book purchasing were illegal just because they’re trailing amazon.com in that field? I never said that the B&M casinos would dominate the market, just that they’d be in the best position to profit from online gaming. No one has access to more capital with which to set up first class gaming software, and no one has better name recognition than the big casinos – a lot more people know that Bally’s has a sports book than have ever heard of Betfair.

35

[QUOTE=hajario]
Fuck but you’re clueless. The most popular of the gambling sites have been around for nearly a decade. There is so much money to be made running a clean site that you would have to be the biggest fool on Earth to risk that by cheating.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly.

The only thing “criminal” about online poker sites is the size of the rake. And if people want to be stiffed while they play, that’s up to them. With the rake so high, and profits so easy to come by, the online sites have no incentive to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

36

So let’s see, it is possible that there are some corrupt poker sites out there. ANd it is certainly ikely that there is collusion amongst some players out there. So what? Caveat emptor and all that. I don’t see why the isolated caes of ill will need to ruin it for everyone.

37

[QUOTE=hajario]
Fuck but you’re clueless. The most popular of the gambling sites have been around for nearly a decade. There is so much money to be made running a clean site that you would have to be the biggest fool on Earth to risk that by cheating.
[/QUOTE]
The cheats wouldn’t be there for long-term. Instead, they’d be there to maximize short-term gains and disappear, possibly reappearing elsewhere untraceable to the original site. The established gaming sites are parts of gaming companies, many British-based. Like the casinos today, they realize there is good long-term $$ to be made playing fair. But if there is one thing we should have learned, it is that if there is a way to make an illegal $ on the internet, thousands across the globe will try. AND they’ll use the trust and good name earned by legitimate sites to do so, dragging them down by association.

Please don’t construe this as support for the legislation - it’s not.

38

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
You’re absolutely correct that they would face stiff competition, but it’s not a zero sum game. Do you think Barnes & Noble wishes online book purchasing were illegal just because they’re trailing amazon.com in that field? I never said that the B&M casinos would dominate the market, just that they’d be in the best position to profit from online gaming.
[/quote]
I think that if the B&M B&N (:)) realised they’d missed the internet boat and had the lobbying power, they’d quite likely support legislation curbing the competitors that had got a run on them in the short term, safe in the knowledge that they could then lobby for liberalisation at a later time and on their own terms. While it’s not a zero-sum game, online businesses will most definitely be taking customers from real casinos, whose market has reached a given size in the absence of convenient online competition, and is unlikely to grow in the first instance as a result of the new boys. While there will always be a market for the real thing, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that the eventual slice of the pie will be bigger than what they have now. Unless, that is, they can slow things down until they get up to speed. Were there any of the major casinos who had a half-decent online presence prior to the passage of this bill?

Well, I disagree on the first part; lots of people have just as much money as casinos, and plenty of people have far more expertise at creating a pleasing online experience. Again, I don’t think the major casinos have done any of this. For example, I’m trying to find out who owns GoldenPalace.com, arguably the most visible online casino. It’s hosted in Kahnawake Mohawk territory, but I can’t at present find any indication that it’s run by an existing casino business; the owners seem to run a large array of other online casinos, but no real-world properties that I can see. By contrast I’ve had a swift poke at the sites for the MGM Grand, the Luxor, the Bellagio and several more properly famous casinos, and there’s nary a peep on there regarding an online presence.

This Bloomberg story confirms that the majors (Harrah’s, MGM Mirage) do indeed want legislators to study whether online gambling can “eventually” be regulated and taxed, allowing the existing operators in, but there’s certainly no mention of displeasure at the new legislation, nor any hint that they were already operating. Look at the companies whose value has been destroyed; Partygaming, Sportingbet and 888; none of these are owned by the Vegas major players. I really think that operators sitting on billions of capital will be able to see the long game, and will be laughing themselves silly to see $7 billion wiped off the value of their upstart competitors. In the meanwhile, Harrah’s et al can happily live off their long-established businesses awaiting liberalisation at an opportune time for themselves. From Forbes, we see that while online gambling stocks plummeted, traditional gambling stocks all saw significant rises after this legislation. This is a telling indicator, IMHO.

And while in the US I’m sure Betfair is far from a household name (seeing as that isn’t its primary market), over here it’s gone from nothing to being pretty much as recognisable as William Hill (our equivalent of Bally’s, I’d guess) in the space of a couple of years. It’s certainly become the gambling destination of choice for just about everyone I know (granted, a young, technologically literate bunch for the most part), and has gained the capital and exposure it needed through having the technology and the idea to succeed; not through incumbency.

39

[QUOTE=col_10022]
Why not get a real job instead of fleecing suckers? Most good poker players I know would make more money as some sort of professional (they’re certainly smart enough). I suspect most of these guys are more than a little addicted to poker and the feeling of superiority they feel when they consistently take someone else’s money.

Collussion is a MUCH easier among poker players in an online setting. That’s cheating. Online gambling needs much more regulation than B&M casinos in Vegas, it also need to be much more effectively taxed.
[/QUOTE]

Let me start out by saying that yes I have a degree and could go and get a *real * job. It would take me years of working at said job to reach the hourly rate I currently enjoy. Not to mention I love the game and don’t need someone like you telling me how I should go about earning a living.

I’ve never had any use for our government, but I felt like as long as they left me the fuck alone, I’d just go about my business and try to pretend all the idiots running things didn’t exist. Unfortunately they have stopped leaving me alone. This is just another notch in a long line of abuses by our government. I’m hopeful this is nothing more than a ploy to force regulation while at the same time pandering to a conservative base that seems to be afraid of just about everything. If not, I will explore all other options available to me. The world is one big game of cat and mouse anyway.

One other point regarding the cheating and/or collusion that goes on. This is rampant in all walks of life. To believe otherwise is foolish. You think signaling doesn’t go on in B&M cardrooms? Instant messenger is nothing more than a reincarnation of age old practices.

40

Man, USA sucks.

If I lived there, I would be furious. I can earn a small amount by playing poker. And the state would now be interfering in my life, and preventing me from that. Tell me, would it then be immoral to steal from the state? They steal from me, and leave me with nothing to do about it. And cant you tell that you are on shady ground, if otherwise honest individuals can even consider this question?

As for this argument:

Couldn’t you say the same about, for instance, professional athletes. But you dont want to ban sports, do you?