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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."
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.
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
You identify the gambling company to the credit-card company and say "if you want to do business in this state you will block transactions to these companies".
If that drives people to mail cash around, you wait for the usual money-laundering detection mechanisms to kick in.
Difficulty in policing something isn't a reason to allow a crime to be legal.
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.
Don't look at it in the light of "win money", but for its "entertainment value". These people are paying for entertainment.
Though I agree; if you play virtual games to win physical assets, you are an idiot.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
What's better: a world where the money belongs to naive innumate fools, or to exploitative hucksters?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
That is an incredibly stupid thing to say. It's obvious you don't know how to play poker - on line or IRL.
Reading your opponents "nervousness" is only a small part of the game. Playing on-line just means everyone has a perfect poker face.
The far more important clues are just as valid on-line as they are in person. How much did he bet? From what position did he play? How long did it take him to think? How often does he bet? How often are the continuation bets? These are all much more important tells then "he looks nervous"...
You can push "all-in" with junk hands and force people off good hands - sure. But if you're playing anyone good, you win maybe a big blind 3-8 times. And as your odds of getting pocket aces are 1 in 215 (or 24 times around a 9 person table), if you push all in long enough, someone will eventually have you beat and call. Donkeys who play like that always go bust if there is anyone moderately good at the table. Sounds like you have had the pleasure...
Not that much is legislated federally
Say what? Congress may not pass all that many bills but the ones they do are multiple warheads filled with scatter bombs.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
Don't be stupid. Maybe you posted as AC because you know you are full of it. The big sites make money hand over fist because they offer a straight game. They stand to lose way more if they don't. The small shady sites maybe, but Pokerstars and FullTilt are fine. These are legitimate enterprises that run legally in many countries.
This is actually far more scary than the title would lead you to believe.
Scaring online poker players and internet gambling aficionados in Massachusetts is text found on page 123 of the 172-page bill. It reads, “Any person who knowingly transmits or receives a wager of any type by any telecommunication device, including telephone, cellular phone, internet, [or] local area network or knowingly installs or maintains said device or equipment for the transmission or receipt of wagering information shall be punished.” The penalty is a hefty one, up to two years behind bars and a fine of up to $25,000.
Translation: if you are in Mass, and you send an email to a buddy along the lines of "Five bucks says Lumburgh is gonna make me come in on Saturday" can get you put in jail and fined.
Warning, knife is sharp. Please keep out of children.
Full Tilt, Poker Stars, etc.. have all been caught red-handed cheating. They rig both the tournaments and the cash games.
Signed,
Someone who sucks at poker, lost their money on these sites, and is looking for something to blame.
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.
I live in Massachusetts.
If you pay your proper bribes you can do just about anything in the area of gambling. Slot machines, poker games, dice tables.
My next door neighbor used to have a high stakes poker game every week. One of the players was the chief of police.
There is an ethnic club in the next town that has slot machines, lotteries, poker games. They pay their bribes and no one bothers them.
What the politicians don't like about internet gambling is there is no way to collect the bribes.
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.
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 needs proof here on /.? Poster had their AA beaten - definitive proof that teh online pokahz iz rigged!!1! A few of the smaller sites have been busted for dodgy things, I have never seen any proof against Full Tilt or PS (being a fairly serious player both online and live I keep a very close eye on these things). Stars especially has a reputation for solid service and refunding $ to players if anything shady was discovered in any of the games that player played in.
If by any chance the poster does have proof there are many people who would be very interested in seeing it. Trouble is - proof has to be a bit more definitive than "I don't trust their RNG" or "they cheat cause I am the worlds best poker player but can't win online". In re the random number generator - proof or STFU. In re being a good player but can't beat online, the reason for that is because online players tend to be, at least at the small to mid stakes, orders of magnitude better than live players.