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Mass. Gambling Bill Would Criminalize Online Poker
timothy writes "Awesome: 'A gambling bill introduced by Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo criminalizes Internet gambling and online poker. The bill calls for two casinos.' Not that they're against gambling, you see... just against being deprived of a monopoly in such a perfect fleecing opportunity."
In the UK (most of the rest of the world, actually) I'll be free to continue spending my time and my money gambling whenever I feel like it.
Why is it that in 2010 we still try to create even more victimless crimes? Even if I'm against the object of the crime itself, I'm very much opposed to my tax dollars being wasted on people who want to do it.
I don't care if my neighbor plays poker. I do care if I have to pay money because my neighbor plays poker.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
.. if you do it in the State of Massachusetts as long as your money doesn't leave the State of Massachusetts. Hmmm ... what if the online casino is located in Massachusetts?
How in the world do you enforce this? RIAA style dragnets?
It shouldn't be a shock to anyone that MA, or any state, would want to limit on-line gaming. The only reason any US state has permitted gaming at all is to generate revenue. Being as the states don't have a good mechanism for that on-line, they don't permit it.
One can moan about libertarian ideals and Puritan ethics all one wants. But, all of the players are fully aware of the situation, and have no inhibition against saying so in public, so pointing it out isn't going to make it go away.
Luke, help me take this mask off
And how many rapists will have to go free to fit in people who just play on line poker / sports bets?
any ways this will just give Argentina even more free IP.
On-line poker is a criminal wasteland run by thugs. There is NO SUCH THING as a fair game of on-line poker for anyone in the U.S.
Full Tilt, Poker Stars, etc.. have all been caught red-handed cheating. They rig both the tournaments and the cash games.
It's not that strange, it's illegal here in Connecticut also. http://www.ct.gov/dosr/cwp/view.asp?Q=291440&A=2031 It competes with the state lottery, and Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos, diverting money out of the state. I sure that Massachusetts faces a similar situation--I've never been to the Sulfolk Downs but I imagine they have slots?
This is a fairly common ban... even in Las Vegas you have to submit yourself to the whims of the Nevada Gaming Commission, and you can't get an Internet casino approved by them. Most states have lotto laws that makes the state-run game the only legal gambling in their jurisdiction.
It's already proven that a lot of MA residents are traveling to the two CT casinos. I'd rather stay in MA to play poker if only there was a legal game in town.
You, as a participant in online gambling, have ZERO ability to determine if you are being cheated.
I would go so far as to say it is almost a 100% certainty that you are being cheated, systematically, in a way you can never detect.
And I don't mean by the ordinary odds against you. I mean by the fact that the server you are interacting with has full information and control of every aspect of the game, and can thus modify the play of the game and the odds against you at will.
It is not necessary for them to kill you in every hand. Only to ensure that their shills win at a slightly elevated rate.
You are a complete retard if you let them take you for that ride.
I have no problem at all with banning online gambling worldwide.
Assuming that the online poker game is *NOT* based in MA, then under the Commerce Clause (abused though it may be) and the 10th Amendment (ignored though it may be), the power to regulate/ban is reserved to the Feds, and the States may not ban it.
Of course, if the game *IS* based in MA, then no problem.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Damn, there goes my day trading business.
None. You idiot.
Press: "Mr. Speaker DeLeo! How come only two casinos?"
DeLeo: "I only got two friends."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
A spinoff of the World Poker Tour TV show is called ClubWPT where people pay about $20/mo. to subscribe to a poker club that offers frequent games with small prizes. This is legal in most states because the subscription fee is for a Las Vegas-based e-mail newsletter, and the games are considered promotions that don't have an individual cash buy-in. Would this go away in MA under the new law?
It's a commonwealth and not a state...
Casinos are specifically and carefully designed to exploit people's natural instincts (for example, no windows so you have no sense of time) and mental illnesses; the layout of the floor is done purposefully, as are the style of the games. There's a wealth of information out there for anyone with access to Google Scholar, for example, like this:
I don't care if my neighbor plays poker. I do care if I have to pay money because my neighbor plays poker.
You have to pay when your neighbor robs the local convenience store to pay the rent/mortgage/grocer (or their gambling debts, or just to gamble more), loses the house/apartment anyway, and their spouse and child are now homeless and on welfare. Or the person becomes homeless, with no health insurance, and ends up in the hospital. Or goes mentally insane and stabs you on the street corner for the $10 in your wallet.
Take a look at the police spending in any community pre-and-post casino. It always skyrockets after the casinos move in, because casinos attract the desperate, mentally ill, and criminal.
Please help metamoderate.
"While the plaintiff's story is compelling and her evidence against her attacker incontrovertible, it has come to the attention of this court that web poker is now illegal. I find the defendant not guilty and motions to appeal are hereby dismissed. This hearing is adjourned, get out of my court, you whiny victim. NOW LET'S TRY THESE GAMBLERS."
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
That only works as a mockery of the sort of bizarre illogic that leads to the argument that rapists would be displaced to jail gamblers.
Washington (state, not DC) also has banned online gambling. You want to gamble, you can play the lottery or hit one of the local casinos.
Your argument about why it should not be allowed is really just an argument for regulation.
For instance, why can't one say the same about the rows and rows of machines with handles and buttons in casinos?
Do you think, for an instance, that all of the machines in a casino are not networked together?
Do you think that jackpot events are actually random and not programmed events that happen as a result of various environmental factors being met?
If you think of gambling as voluntary payment of taxes and welfare, then you are on the right track for modern, legal, gambling that is authorised by government.
Mod parent up. In Washington it is a *felony* to gamble online. Is it because gambling online is a much more serious crime than the misdemeanor of, say, punching a stranger in the face? No, it's because lawmakers want to keep receiving lobby money from the Indian casinos and small poker houses that are the established, profitable businesses already in the state.
The only thing they care about is lining their pockets with the money they steal and extort from us.
I, too, consider it perfectly okay to ban something on the basis that I think it's stupid.
.... why?
Why don't you ask California where they're letting all sorts out early because they ran out of room and money.
Many sites Straight Cheat..
You don't have a very good grasp as to how online poker works. And yes there is a reason for an online casino to cheat their customers you cock gobbling retard.
You know who he sounds like? Someone with a brain in their head. So Mr. online poker shill, you continue wasting your money in cheaterville while the rest of us laugh at you.
LOL! Unobtainium!
Oh wait, wrong article....
IANAL(yet, 15 credits away), but isn't this going to raise WTO protectionism issues? like the Antigua dispute?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-wto.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301390.html
I find this particularly hypocritical. Years ago, there was an out-of-state student who went on a killing spree at a Massachusetts school. The reason he was able to easily acquire the weapon and ammunition he used was because, since he was from out-of-state, Massachusetts gun laws did not apply to him. The gun laws of his home state (somewhere out west - I don't quite remember which state), which were considerably less stringent, applied to him instead.
Robert Deleo is a house speaker for Massachusetts? What happened to Stone Temple Pilots?
between investing and gambling.
And poker is the least stupid "gambling" game, because if you memorize the probabilities and learn to play you can actually make a living off poker. Lots of people in Las Vegas do just that.
Poker is a zero-sum game, so playing poker when you're worse than than the other players at your table is stupid. But playing when you're better than them is a business.
devoted to the theory of how to play a game like poker with no reference to tells or psychology.
If you studied it, you'd be shocked how much "psychology" is really mathematics / game theory.
Serious online poker players keep logs of their hands. Are you saying that we can't run simple statistical analysis with millions of data points? In online poker, it is not in the interest of the house to cheat the players. They take their cut in each normal hand. Why would they jeopardize their popularity trying to cheat players? They make more guaranteeing fair play.
Fortunately for spazdor, the comment was meant as a mockery of the sort of bizarre illogic that leads to the argument that rapists would be displaced to jail gamblers, so it works.
Poker is a great form of gambling because like the casino, a player can put the odds in their favor.
I am still playing on money that was in there since the first law came out that said,"US citizens can't deposit money to online gambling sites." Yet, the FBI have taken everyone's withdraws from Pokerstars one month last year. What if people were just withdrawing their money they had in their accounts before the bill was past? Isn't the government trying to do ex post facto?
No one ever stands up for gambler's rights because they're like,"Whatever, they're just gamblers", just like how no one stands up against "sin tax" on alcohol and cigs. Depending on how far it is down the shade of gray depends on how much the government will try and abuse their power. It isn't like they even care that they're abusing their power. They're more worried someone will call them out on it. When they try and censor the web, the first things they try to censor are things some people may find immoral.
God spoke to me.
having lots of laws that protect "potential victims" from the consequences of their own choices and isolate "the public" from all kinds of personal risk by socializing the losses from taking those risks. Make no mistakes -- this is the kind of social engineering by government what American "progressives" have been about from day one. Remember, the "masses" are stupid, cling to all sort of harmful things, and it's "progress" to change them through law enforcement.
Bottom line, IMHO? NEVER legislate anything based on "morality". If we adhered to that simple policy, we wouldn't have the huge fight over whether or not gays can get married in various states, and we wouldn't have all the nonsense about prostitution (illegal to pay for something it's illegal to get for free, even from the SAME people). We wouldn't blow MASSIVE amounts of tax dollars on the "war on drugs" that's impossible to win either.
And as for laws preventing people from "parading around naked all day long"? I agree. It doesn't make much sense to enforce "indecent exposure" laws, as we have them currently. (In fact, some of the people charged with such a thing for simple public urination during past Mardi Gras celebrations in my city led to them getting put on the sex offender registry! Nice, huh?)
I'd rather say that private establishments are free to enforce their own rules and restrictions on who is welcome on their property. So if your local grocery store still wants to enforce a "no shirt, no shoes - no service!" rule, great. Failure to comply means law enforcement can have you arrested, but not just for "indecent exposure" .... for trespassing.
There are a lot of people who bet sports on line the states should be able to get a tax out of usa based on line sports books.
Instead of trying to ban or restrict online gambling, why not simply license these sites on the condition that they pay the same gambling taxes as would be paid by a physical casino.
So if someone from Massachusetts plays on a site, the site has to pay gambling taxes to Massachusetts.
"I'd rather say that private establishments are free to enforce their own rules and restrictions on who is welcome on their property. So if your local grocery store still wants to enforce a "no shirt, no shoes - no service!" rule, great. Failure to comply means law enforcement can have you arrested, but not just for "indecent exposure" .... for trespassing."
No Niggers, No Kykes, no Catholics?
Who cares if anyone plays online? The folks that do are idiots. In the end, the only winner is the site you play on. Anyone who claims to be a winner is nothing more than a shill and a liar to boot!
My favorite term for these idiots. Professional poker players. Allow me to translate that title. Unemployed degenerate gambler.
Even the idiots you see playing on tv are broke most of the time. Most of them are buddies and lend money back and forth.
Vote me down and call me ignorant and a bad player. Those of you who do play online know deep inside that I'm right but refuse to admit it.
I don't even know her!
Gambling addictions are one of the most insidious and dangerous "legal" addictions, not only can it destroy lives and families it does so invisibly with no physical warning signs unlike alcoholism or other drug abuse.
It's not victimless.
That being said it is a vice we tolerate, much like drinking and smoking (if you do not gamble, drink or smoke, your vice is being an arsehole who thinks they are too good for other vices) and much like drinking and smoking problems it has real victims when abused. However it should not be made illegal as it is a vice that can be enjoyed responsibly much like alcohol but cannot be regulated like sales of alcohol and tobacco which involve a physical product changing hands (I.E. when I buy alcohol from overseas, it's stopped by AU customs when the product enters the country, not by the AFP when I make the transaction).
This bill is being done for the tax revenue, I assume MA has legalised and regulated casinos, thus driving up gambling revenues, in which case it will not work. If this bill does pass, it will just do to gambling what prohibition did for alcohol, drive it underground. The people who are addicted to online poker will not stop, instead they will go to seedy underground poker dens which are rigged and likely run by organised criminals.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This discussion is plain silly...
Amalgamation.
I play an insane amount of hands in online poker and, shocking, I'm a winning player at every stake I've played at (and I know my limits).
I've build a very comfy bankroll.
If you play on a reputable site like PokerStars (which makes, what, $2million PER DAY in rake) nothing seems 'shaddy'.
People here are thinking all online poker for money should be banned: wtf dudes seriously, there's a difference
between someone playing $0.01/$0.02 blinds $2NL and someone without money playing $1/$2 blinds $200NL.
Is it possible for one moment to stop thinking "crime" and realize that some people do actually enjoy
playing the game for the thrill of it?
I can tell you that online poker isn't full of degenerate gamblers spewing money around.
Online poker is full of people who like the game and want to get better at it
(oh btw it's stats & psychology and has hardly anything to do with luck in
the long term).
I'd rather say that private establishments are free to enforce their own rules and restrictions on who is welcome on their property.
Ya that's what we used to do, but people got tired of businesses putting up signs that said things like "No Niggers, Jews, or Irish".
as it is a restriction (or extreme discrimination against imports) of trade which is not allowed under the current version of the WTO to which the US is a signatory. Hence the 'harmed' nations with affect internet poker sites will be entitled to discriminate against US trade.
The US can always choose to ignore the ruling since it is a powerful nation. But that will only encourage smaller nations to set up internet poker sites and obtain compensatory damages - preferably calculated by the RIAA lawyers. Then the fun begins where the compensatory damages can be in the form of ignoring US intellectual property 'rights' in the host country.
Plenty of clubs magically become less full if attractive ladies want to get in, it would be far more reasonable if they were allowed to tell you the reason you're not getting in.
Ignoring the current anti-discrimination laws, "No Catholics" would be a fairly silly rule, since the only way to tell if a person is Catholic is to either ask them, recognise some identifying item of clothing (which round here would pretty much only be a World Youth Day shirt, since all the other Catholic organisations with shirts or whatnot are too small for a non-Catholic to be likely to know, and a lot of non-Catholics attend Catholic schools because most private schools are Catholic), or by knowing them personally. "No Kykes" would be even more pointless because there are almost no obvious Jews (ultra-orthodox, or visibly ethnic Jews) round here.
"No Blacks" (or at least "No Abos") would be a sensible business decision in some places, since there is a perception that they are more likely to be disorderly or objectionable than white or asian people, so a bar or nightclub might be more profitable if they refuse entry to all Aboriginal people. I have heard of that being done on the sly in Alice and the more racist parts of Queensland. Of course, if such behaviour was legal, then in publicly-traded companies it would still have to be in the best interests of the shareholders.
Of course, all that ignores the fact that "No shirt, no shoes, no service" is currently legal, whereas the examples you gave are currently not.
For instance, there's groups for shopping addiction, yet shopping is victimless.
Have you seen prices these days?
This is just an expansion of the ban on gambling on the internet from a while ago.
The people who host the site are either not in the state or the country so the revenue generated leaves the taxable area so government effectively loose money on it.
TBH I think they should offer incentives for local businesses to start up on-line poker rather than ban the whole thing.
And double-damn the DMCA!
Blar.
There's a little thing called the Dormant Commerce Clause.
The Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) provides:
"[The Congress shall have power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;"
The Supreme Court has ruled this to prevent the states from interfering with interstate and international commerce, because that's supposed to be the exclusive domain of Congress.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Wait - the summary and tags forgot to mention that this DeLeo clown is a Democrat. Oh, but this is Slashdot, where Democrats pushing for a more of a nanny state are OK. Betcha if he'd been a Republican it would have been prominently mentioned and tagged.
Two points, one, as I posted in another post, all laws are based on morality.
Two, the "no shirt, no shoes - no service" is a health regulation, not one about being dressed "decently". Whether that health regulation is a good one or not is another question. It is, however, still an enforcement of a moral code ("don't endanger the health of others unneccessarily").
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Online gambling is allready illegal in MA. That part of the law keeps the new law from making it legal.
I used to have a friend who went bankrupt and lost everything. Did this happen because of gambling? No. He would spend all his money on the latest car modifications for his corvette that he couldn't afford. Every month he was buying stuff or making mods or getting tests done on his corvette. He got way behind on his credit card bills and apartment rent but kept buying crap.
Another example is I used to have a friend who kept buying the newest and greatest home theater stuff. It never ended and our friendship ended at a time when he was getting hounded by debt collectors over who knows what.
I know lots of people who gamble, including relatives, and none of them have ever gone broke. Why? Because it's ENTERTAINMENT. If I want to spend $200 a month on poker, why shouldn't that be just as free to do as spending $200 a month on car upgrades? On audio upgrades? On a single football game?
People go broke doing anything you can imagine, it's not fair to only hone in gambling
In Oklahoma, Native American Casinos really multiplied like crazy in recent years. But one of my favorite pool halls closed down recently, because they had stayed in business mainly through the use of a few gambling machines, like slot machines. What happened, as it turns out, is that our state government made those machines illegal outside of native american casinos. That's how it generally works in america: government-enforced monopolies. Use morality to raise taxes and restrictions on small, local business, and then when the unemployment rate goes up as a result, use tax incentives and regulatory exceptions to "attract" large corporations. I wouldn't be surprised if the large corporations were behind the government intervention int he first place.
I play online poker at PartyPoker.I've lost about £200 in 2 years,this is a small amount but i stiill grudge losing it :).Like the majority that do any activity,i know i'm not a "pro" and have no realistic chance of ever being a "pro",(i know im not a good player,but i know my limits,just like the majority of people that gamble on poker online)but to hear the idiots shouting to BAN things THEY dont do themselves is annoying........Go and get a life of your own and let others do the same...I think ALL religious people are self-delusional,potential psychopaths....I dont want to BAN religion though....I should also point out that i live in Britain and this is not a NEW story.Your media is always a couple of years behind when it comes to reporting most things.That old truism about "how to grow mushrooms" seems to be the way the American media treats the American public....Shortly after i joined PartyPoker (about 2 years ago)they announced(PartyPoker)that Americans were not allowed to play online poker for money.This happened because the GREEDY politicians in America were threatening PartyPoker with legal action unless they got a CUT of their profits. :)
Party Poker took the correct attitude(in my opinion) and BANNED all Americans from playing for money on their site.Though curiously,Americans are allowed to play on the "PLAY MONEY" tables(these are just poker games that have no money to win or lose,sort of like a friendly game with your family)
The hypocrisy of your American politicians is astounding.They are just as bad as my British politicians
I dont know how the other online Poker sites deal with the threat from American politicians but if they all act like PartyPoker has acted,then NO Americans would be playing online for money,therefore NO American would be Gambling(at poker,as this seems to be a distinction that is frequently over looked) and the politicians would not be able to do anything....
Thank your politicians for taking you one step closer to their "utopia".(an America where EVERYTHING is controlled for you,all you have to do is work,eat,sleep and pay your taxes)Enjoy!!!!!