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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
Yes. That's why both the subject and the summary mention Massachusetts. It's a state. You may have heard of it. It is part of the United States of America.
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.
How in the world do you enforce this? RIAA style dragnets?
NSA sniffs at ISP's.
Army and Air Force will take you down.
FBI will freeze your money.
IRS will collect taxes from your winnings even while you don't get your money back.
Next question?
and how do you diferenciate between diferent games of skill? What is the diference between say a poker game with a $20 per player entry fee and say a Warhammer (minature wargames) competition with the same entry fee with the entry fee being used in the same way to provide prizes.
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.
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.
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!
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
I have no problem at all with banning online gambling worldwide.
yeah, fuck freedom, who needs that?
"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!
What's better: a world where the money belongs to naive innumate fools, or to exploitative hucksters?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
You don't have a very good grasp as to how online poker works. There is no reason whatsoever for an online casino to cheat their customers. In fact, it works against their interest. Money is taken out of each and every pot played. It is NOT in the casino's interest to make their customers go broke faster than normal. If you go broke fast, you may leave forever. If you go broke slowly you will likely reload your account with new funds. Regardless, a hired "shill" will not be able to pull a profit undetected faster than the rake which collects money every single hand on every single table.
You sound like the many many people who try online poker, lose badly, and chose to blame the system rather than a lack of skill.
That wouldn't be a new problem, nor is it a difficult one. State laws in the United States regulate gambling by stuff like the number of tables in play and the number of machines in play, as well as whether the company makes a business out of operating a gambling establishment. Even non-casinos are (and should be) subject to regulation like the rule saying that no purchase can be necessary to enter a contest or else it's legally a lottery.
Also, why would you say that a Warhammer tournament with entrance fees and a big prize should be less regulated than a poker tournament?
Slashdot is mostly centered around the United States. And in case you're unaware, the United States is a bunch of united states with their own separate laws. Not that much is legislated federally; news about Massachusetts law (a particularly influential state, in fact) is as notable as any other legal news.
Generally, I'd say you are right. You don't have the certainty you're not being cheated.
However, my personal experience is that I substantially netted positive over a year-long online poker career. I don't have any explanation for it, really, but I can't imagine they'd let more than a few players get away with any real amount of money, and I certainly don't think I'm the one that won the lottery of being "allowed" to win to attract other players.
If they do adjust the win rates at an infinitesimal rate to allow their house players to win, then they were doing it both transparently and subtly enough that it was still a profitable venture for me to be online playing a solid game. You could potentially liken it to doing business in a lawless part of the world - some times, you're going to get hijacked, but on the whole it's still making money for you.
Now, for all the guys that *I* took money from, yeah, that was certainly a mistake on their part, but it's not like every player can be a winner, can they?
Difficulty in policing something isn't a reason to allow a crime to be legal.
The jury has been out on that for a few hundred years now. Consider 1.) An unenforceable (de jure) law ultimately rewards the dishonest while punishing only the honest who confess their crime (Hobbes). And 2.) From a political standpoint, unenforceable legislation creates the appearance of real moral authority without risk of alienating those constituents who would be punished if were enforceable. Public disregard for enforceability therefore promotes dishonesty of both the citizen and the official -- exactly the sort of business an ethical society should avoid.
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...
I agree it's mostly stupid. The way most people do it is completely fucking stupid. The way some people do it is addictively self-destructive.
Table games are a losing cause, but the odds are posted and you make your decision with full cognizance of the risks and the way the chances are stacked against your being a winner, much less a big winner. So for people who aren't addicted, it's just stupidly expensive entertainment until you learn your lesson and stop doing that to yourself.
Poker isn't gambling against the house. The cards randomize the action, but they give every player an even chance, leaving the gaming down to a player's ability to present and interpret behaviors, and compute odds in real time. The house gets paid a capped percentage of the pot, which makes it only as expensive as any correctly-played table game.
Putting poker online doesn't alter the odds if the game is constructed properly. But it does create a massive opportunity for the server operator to cheat, massive enough that it is unlikely that any online poker server isn't being used to cheat. The only way to guarantee it's fair is to be the person who creates and operates the server. But that, again, is a massive opportunity for you to cheat, and nobody else can prove you aren't, so it's logical to make it illegal for you to even spread the game that way.
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.
You don't have a very good grasp as to how online poker works.
That is a stupid assumption.
You sound like the many many people who try online poker, lose badly, and chose to blame the system rather than a lack of skill.
I doubt you've ever met two people who've acted that way, much less "many many".
I write high-zoot software. I play high-stakes poker. I've played poker online since it was done in email*. I've studied the laws of gaming by wire (before Janet Reno did, btw) and the history of online gambling, including the known cases of cheating, by both the operators of the servers and by nefarious employees of the operators of the servers and by organized colluders outside the company. It's clear to me that only the very, very, very stupidest of them have ever been caught. The ones with IQs over 60 are all still out there.
In any business, nobody is ever satisfied with the status quo, and the opportunity to turn the profit margins up by hiding the true odds of the game are far too great to allow for the situation where any gaming server isn't being crocked in some small way. Not enough to punish the customers beyond the implied pleasure they get from the service, just enough to make the operators happy that they're making a bigger killing than they're admitting. And here's where it goes all Kafka: because it's a business, and has competition, it has to spend money to compete. Because the other businesses are crooked, they can spend more, and compete better. That drives up the necessity of being crooked yourself, to stay in business at all. That further drives down the probability that any online gaming server isn't being crocked in at least some small way.
There is no reason for anyone to believe that any particular online gaming server is 100% legit.
* - I've never given a nickel to an online gaming website. Because, as I said, I knew all of this would be possible on the day the first one went live, and I've only ever had my analysis confirmed.
Some states have rules decided based on whether it's a game of chance or skill.
For example, pinball was hotly contested in some states, because there are some luck elements - especially because early pinballs paid out. (And they didn't have flippers, so it was almost entirely chance at first.) Some of those luck elements (free games, match, etc.,) must be disabled in some states, to be on the skill side of the chance vs. skill threshold.
Some states require that games of skill not pay out, some of them have a certain legal tests for what a game of skill is (they essentially boil down to something along the lines of, can a skilled player win even with all luck elements being against them, IIRC,) etc., etc.
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.
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.
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.
Given that Washington State has similar issues, and laws, and casinos... and given that this is largely about the medium (internet), I think it's relevant enough to warrant discussion. Besides, if we don't put it out there and let people discuss, learn and spread, how are we supposed to do anything about it before it becomes widespread and "accepted"?
Why would a site need shills to make money? They poker sites take rake out of pots to generate revenue. The more pots played, the more money they make. The ideal situation for them is for players to play as much as possible.
Please also consider this argument, which is completely parallel to your own:
How can you prove that some websites aren't scamming?
You are a complete retard if you let them scam you.
I have no problem with banning websites worldwide.
Are you implying that all tournaments in all forms be regulated by a (currently non-existent) body? Poker is one thing. Warhammer is quite another. Meanwhile, how do you regulate a masquerade contest? What about Halloween costume contests? How about the COD4 ladder I was in? Got rules for that? What if they differ from the ones we agreed to on entering our clan? How about the Corps in EVE online that take isk cuts from their players? Isk has a cash equivalence, which fluctuates like real currency. Should that be included and regulated? How about the in game site that lets you pay isk to see nude pictures? Or the one that lets you pay isk to play "slots" and you might get a fat isk pay out. Got regulations and enforcement for a game based in Iceland, hosted in London, and which the sub game gambling system is made and hosted by a random_player in random_country. Should this be "regulated"? by who?
This is one of the few times I think that the free market will do just fine. People will put their gambling dollars where they get the best experiance, and that should be up to them to choose. If it's an outright fraud, they'll get busted and sued. If it's only a slight fraud, then that's fine since it's supposed to be like that, and everyone knows it. Are we going to set state endorsed odds? Who's to say what "fair" odds are?
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?
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.
The vast majority of gamblers are losers. There are a few out there that do make money simply by being smart. Back in the day before the problems with the US bans, bonuses offered by the numerous online casinos totaled in the thousands of dollars. By playing smartly within the rules of the casinos, you could walk away with most of that money in profit. This is after the almost insignificant losses from the play requirements of the casinos, assuming you played blackjack with correct strategy.
It was a fun month of free time for my wife and I, since we like to play blackjack. And it payed for a nice trip to Las Vegas. We didn't even ever get ripped off or denied our winnings, which surprised me. The only time we encountered problems was when I didn't fully read the rules of the bonuses. But we still made about $4000, even with our mistakes. And I learned to play the fine blackjack variant of Pontoon.
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.
You, as a participant in online gambling, have ZERO ability to determine if you are being cheated.
All serious players at online casinos run programs which store each and every hand dealt at the tables they play at, and make various statistics based on that information. Some of them have a sufficient grasp of statistics to be able to figure out if they're being cheated. Certain things, like getting worse hands in a consistent manner, would be grossly obvious for instance. Furthermore, casinos already have a steady revenue stream: the rake. At tables where the big blind reaches 50 dollars, the casino takes about four dollars every single hand, so they're probably earning at least 200 dollars per hour per table at these stakes. There is absolutely no incentive for a casino to cheat his customers, which could just go elsewhere at the first sign of being cheated.
Here is a link to a blog about a cheating scandal at one of the major poker sites. The cheating was discovered by players, and it was not done by the casino, but by rogue employees.
I had written a long rant about the rest of your post, but I think it is best to simply say that you have no idea what you're talking about. I will, however, give a reply to the last sentence.
I have no problem at all with banning online gambling worldwide.
It's easy to call for a ban when it doesn't affect you or anyone you know.
I'll bite.
Ever done a technical integration for a gambling site? It's a little bit more than putting a box online, writing a PHP Poker script and making cash.
Depending where you setup (The majority are hosted in the Northern Territory, Australia, for its very, very gambling-friendly taxes) - every single piece of hardware and software you put online is scrutinised and tested by the government - yes, hardware as well (so you can't shave with a dodgy FPU, etc)
All hardware must be contained in the equivalent of a fire / waterproof bunker, and unaccessible to outsiders.
All hardware must be audited by the watchdog.
All software must be audited by the watchdog.
These policies are naturally invisible to those that don't know, so one may be forgiven for posting flippantly on an forum that cheating is almost 100% certain.