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Online Poker Legalization Bill Coming Next Week
GovTechGuy writes "Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) could introduce his bill to legalize online poker as soon as next week. The bill would legalize the game in all 50 states, but sites could only be set up in states where gambling is already legal, so they can be licensed through existing gaming commissions. States could choose to opt-out of the law and ban online poker by referendum or a vote of the state legislature. The bill would also create a federal regulatory body to oversee the game."
What are the odds of this passing?
Fear not. I'm sure they will tack on a last-minute amendment outlawing food banks, or some such.
No No No. Why need to a create a federal regulatory body? For interstate taxing? That is why you are forcing it to be run in a state with a gaming commission. everything else is ok. But get back to me when this is actually close to passing.
This bill would not be necessary if Republicans had not banned it in 2006.
So...better late than never to the logic train.
194 Democrats in the house voted for it, and 1 voted against. In the senate, the only Democrat who did not vote for it was Akaka, from Hawaii, who did not cast a vote.
But, I know, it's easier to blame Republicans than actually do any research.
You know crime rates go through the roof around casinos right? http://www.uga.edu/news/newsbureau/releases/1999releases/gambling.html Also I think your title was meant to be "should be legal"
It makes sense. If you can play offline poker in a state, then I see no reason why online poker should be any different.
I guess the difference is who gets the taxation revenues. The politicians in State A hate to think of their citizens gambling in an online casino that funds State B.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
How does gambling impact the size of the population?
I am generally for harm reduction, and as such believe that gambling, prostitution and most drugs should be legal, well regulated and discouraged.
"go through the roof" = +8%. You sir have very low roofs.
Also, there may be some bias: there usually is quite heavy security around the casinos, which leads to more crimes being detected and reported (and prosecuted), for the same amount of crimes committed.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
So then crime rates will shoot up around free wifi if we make internet poker legal?
An 8% increase is not crime rates going through the roof. Considering the link to the paper is dead, this seems like rather poor evidence all around.
Add in the cameras and off duty cops used for that security and I bet it covers all or most of that 8%.
Lots of unreported crime when no one is watching.
Is that OK? Has anyone legalised it yet? It's really important that I know if Senator John Johnson III has passed a bill saying that it's no longer illegal for me to scratch my ass.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you do not understand, then you may not be in the best position to explain to those who believe it is, at least predominantly, a game of chance.
Is there skill involved? Of course. You need to be able to weigh your odds on a non-emotional level. But that goes along with learning what a straight is and whether or not it beats a full house. That's not particularly 'skill'. The skill element comes from gaming your co-players. Reading their tells, faking your own, bluffing, etc. However, your actions therein may influence the game - then again, it may not. Thus: chance.
The point at which things become rather difficult is when proponents of "poker isn't gambling" point to the professional poker players who, when pitted against a random bunch of other poker players, tend to win far more often than a random selection would dictate. Thus their skill at influencing the game outweighs the chances.
But this is only against such a random selection of other poker players and only when they're human. Pitted against a computer, their results suddenly fall well within a bell curve of chance.
Compare this to golf and bowling, which you cited, where you are far more in direct control of how the game is played. Yes, a sudden gust of wind can throw the ball off course (in golf, perhaps in bowling if it's the hurricane season) - but the course you're presented with is known beforehand. It's not a randomly dealt course, and you don't have to read the other player's 'tells', you can see exactly where his ball went.
( Surprisingly, you didn't mention chess; also considered a sport, and also not uncontroversially so. But almost universally considered a game of skill rather than chance. )
So is it skill, or is it chance?
I'd say it's a little of both, with chance being predominant in the game's actual elements, and skill being predominant in its (human) players.
This presents a bit of a problem as the laws currently are sort of black-and-white. It's either a game of chance or a game of skill with nothing in between. So when a bunch of experts from both sides of the fence speak up during the latest debate on this and once again decide that it's more chance than skill, by however narrow a margin, the law says it's a game of chance and all regulations thus apply.
But those same regulations can't exactly be bent to a situation where it would be declared that poker is 55% chance and 45% skill and thus 55% of the regulations apply.
To much chagrin of both poker site operators as those looking to welcome 'taxing' the games played.
In the end, though, a highly skilled poker player can still lose against somebody who never played before and sat down just for kicks. A well-trained marathon runner, however, is not going to lose against a couch potato short of an external influence.
That's why it's not obvious to everyone that poker is not a game of chance, and thus it's not obvious to everyone that playing poker with an ante is not gambling.
Furthermore he expects all these firms who may ot conduct any business int he US, US citizens have to call them, are going to have to pay protection money to the organized crime syndicates that control the varied states in which gambling is legal. This would be like a US company having to pay the Russian mob before a Russian citizen can order a widget from the US company. What would happen is if a Russian party did receive goods form the US, they would pay a tarrif on when it entered the country. This is what should happen, use the rules we have. I can tell you that many cities in texas have a number of thinly veiled gambling houses and the laws are not being enforced.
I think that US citizens should be able to link foreign sites an gamble as they please. If the money or good are drawn from foreign sources and brought into the US, that is legal. If the good are US domestic that may be a problem. If the web sites are registered local then that might also be a problem as the US government can and will take it. The taking does not necessarily limit the ability to gamble.
Also, in case you don't know, the skill thing is a nod to the many irrational christians in texas. They are experts in situational ethics so that, for instance, preventing a the termination of fetus at 4 weeks requires huge amounts of taxpayer funding, but not taxpayer funding is required to prevent the baby from dying at 1 year. Gambling is bad, but if he can fool enough people into thinking that poker is skills it won't hurt their brains, even though most gambling houses will kick you out if you really use skill.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So can drinking and sex... Oh, wait, I see where you going with this now. You want those to be outlawed, too.
If it shifts the decision to the states, it's already a good thing, even if the states decide to maintain the status quo for now. People have different preferences everywhere, and eventually this may well lead to decriminalizing this in some more liberal states. If Bible Belt wants to stick to it, I don't see a problem with that, either.
It certainly changes the stupidity of blaming either party for it as if the other wouldn't have also done it.
You know, I'm ok with the government regulating gambling. I like knowing the dice are only as loaded as the house admits (i.e. by the design of the game, rather than by fraud).