Good luck spending your money when a disaster makes credit cards no longer work, cash worth the paper its printed on, and gold worth less than food or a good knife. That is the point of government. You invest in sufficient protection to defend yourself from the aforementioned calamities. We also pay into social security for this purpose, but it has been hijacked by the wealthy politicians as a bread-and-circus for the lazy or those who just gave up, as it keeps 'em complacent. We need to retake government, but every time anyone calls for this they still end up voting the same douche bag, corrupt assholes into office. Want to start something? Lets do it together. There are enough of us on / . we could do it, but I have yet to find one person willing to put their efforts where their mouth is.
Id like the rich to actually pay a reasonable amount rather than forcing the middle and lower classes to carry them with their labor, effort and intelligence and also forcing them to pay taxes that cut into the funds they need for their families.
They also artificially create Fritos and Doritos, feed cows a plant material they cannot actually fully digest, make each persons taxes higher, ruin our engines with corn based ethanol, and make all of the insanity an American staple. Good work.
You are basically akin to a religious fundamentalist. I.e., there is no arguing with you because you cannot be convinced to civilly debate with any ounce of logic and/or evidence.
There are already third-party organizations that certify online gambling sites. No reason for the government to get involved.
This doesn't have much to do with gambling at all. Like money laundering laws what this is really about is taxes. The US government wants to make sure it can track every dollar you make and spend. What's to keep people from moving money around outside the sight of the all-seeing eye? Can't have that.
If you reread my post, I never said "Government oversight" at all. I said impartial oversight. This included private organizations. The point is to make it fair some way, and that is actually the responsibility of the gamblers. Even though I think gambling is among the worst ways to spend your time, I still think you should be able to do it without being unfairly taken advantage of. Just like it should be illegal to sell you a car that looks OK and performs OK short term, but won't get you more than 100 miles before breaking down.
What sort of piss have you been drinking? At one time we had limited government and people who owned other people, i.e. slavery. Then a federal government asserted its authority over another arguable sovereign set of states with smaller government and fixed this problem. Don't even get me wrong. I believe in State's rights, and I would have fought along with my southern ancestors for this, but at the same time I find it hard to believe Black people deserve to be slaves. Big government NOT EQUAL bad government. This is evident by the fact the Chinese are beating us badly, making our efforts look like a joke while loaning us money to support a spend-happy government, and working harder than the average American. Its also evident by the fact the Soviet Union beat us time and time again in science and technology. Even if they failed in the end, they still beat us and continue to appreciate scientists more than rich parasites like the US does. Basically, I am saying big government has its advantages, and so does small. The flow back and forth ends up determining who has the advantage, and I am not certain you will ever be able to predict which is better at any given time.
Why should we be obsessed with our so-called founding fathers' vision of what should be? Should we not determine this for ourselves rather than believing in the infallibility of our ancestors? We are here because of them, but what they thought is a product of the time they existed. Why should we do what they say when in light of new information we can logically determine a better path?
Frankly, there is nothing mandated in the Constitution. Its more of an outline as to how Government should be wholly for the people, not bent to special interests, and should also function minimalistically. It outlines, or gives reference where to look for, how to not be a fucking scum-bag that steps over other peoples rights that are given to them by nature. Unfortunately, this happens every single day of every American's life.
Come on. The feds fund Medicare left and right. They fund Social Security left and right, and they fund Defense left and right. The Planned Parenthood funding amounts to less than one tenth of one percent the defense budget and less than one half of one tenth of one percent of the Social Security and Medicare budget. Furthermore, this program more often than not gives free birth control (NOT ABORTION SINCE ITS ILLEGAL FOR FED FUNDS TO GO TO ABORTION) to woman and men that allows them to responsibly plan their families. I think your efforts to reduce the budget are better spent on solving the poverty and health care access problem that Social Security and Medicare are spending 1500 billion dollars on, or solving the War and Peace problem that out beloved Defense program spends 700 billion dollars on rather worrying about funding an organization that takes up a maximum of 0.3 billion. Learn to understand magnitudes of numbers and interpret numbers rather than make morality part of your argument. There are at least enough US citizens that agree with birth control in the US and also who pay taxes to support it, so stop being selfish with their money.
Odds are your brother was simply a bad player. Don't take it personally, most poker players are bad. Most who think they're good are bad. Poker really is a game of skill. There's a lot of well known and well studied strategy that rests on game theory, statistics, combinatorics, etc. Drop an inexperienced player into a setting with people who know this and they will generally lose, not because anyone's cheating, but because they'll be recognized as really bad players and the really good players will play in such a way as to exploit their errors.
Its not true. He won quite a few tournaments at the time, and he attributes it to the fact that the players were randomized. I realize there is a difference between tourney play and regular play. I actually come from a family of poker players. My dad won quite a few tournaments in Montana and one big one in Reno, but he needed the money for our family so he never tried to invest it (if you call it that) in entrance fees for more prestigious tournaments like the World Series to develop professionally as a player. He sort of toned it down over the last decade or so and now just plays weekends, but he wins about 60 percent of the time and wins more than loses. He used to bring home several thousand dollars at a time since he prefers no-limit poker. My brother basically learned from him. I never was into it very much since it always seemed to require more time to get good than I was willing to put into it, but I do know a thing or two about mathematics and statistics considering Im a graduate math student. Your analysis may be correct, but for which website? Also, cooperating does not change the odds of getting particular cards, but it lets two or more people know what cards YOU don't have, and that basically becomes a game theory problem rather than simply statistics and probablity. My brother did Poker Stars and (I think it was called) Bodog. My brother isn't an idiot either mind you, hes a pharm D student, and he said that it was well known on these websites, at that time, people would cooperate to win the pot.
There has to be laws against fraud, otherwise it would be rampant. Though this particular case may be bullshit, it doesn't matter. I state facts. If it were prohibition I would be a bootlegger. That answer it for you?
I agree with you. Moral or nanny laws are never good for the people. My main point is that if gambling is legal, it should be fair. I.e. the odds must fit the game. If a casino had a trick dealer that would make sure all the players money went to a house player at a Texas Hold'Em table, that is not fair and shouldn't be allowed. Its the same thing as misrepresenting a product and is anti-consumer. Maybe private industry could regulate itself, but I don't see that happen a whole lot.
Texas Hold 'Em is perfectly winnable with skill. Sure, the rake takes away some money from the table, but think of it as "renting" your chair and paying for the gambling license and operating costs. If you walked into a casino where the dealers were doing tricks with decks so that a house player was winning all your money, then the game is no longer fair. Sports regulates the use of performance enhancing drugs, why should it be different with poker? Maybe it doesn't have to be the government that regulates it, but it has to be impartial for fairness. I don't gamble either way so it doesn't matter to me.
Sure thing. Roads and Road maintenance are a service provided by government that is useful and few would argue is unnecessary. Apparently Idiots that like roads want the government to nanny us because if they really wanted to they could saw down trees, blow holes through mountains, or off road it in their expensive Humvee's loaded with explosives and chainsaws. I could fucking list them all day. The point is that if a people want the government to provide a service to them, they have a right to fund it. You have a right to disagree and try to convince people otherwise, but just because you don't like something doesn't mean it fucking matters at all. If people want to gamble (and I am not one of these people) and they want government regulation bad enough, they will get it regardless of what you think.
You are right. We are entitled to nothing FOR FREE, but we are entitled to benefit from the fruits of our labors which is typically usurped by the wealthy class. Its a big pyramid scheme. Skim a little off of each of your employees and you will have a lot. Its happened all throughout history. If an engineer generates 1 million in revenue for his company, he will only see about a hundred thousand of that. The CEO will get a huge bonus, and the upper management will get raises all based on his effort.
A company is not its board room, a company is its employees and investors. If employees are generating more revenue they deserve to share in it proportionally as the investors did for putting money down on the company in the first place. What is happening today is a dramatic shift towards investors getting all the benefits, while the employees get the same wage regardless. Typically, the rich are the investors so they get richer and richer, and pay everyone else less and less so they can't become investors in the first place. The end result will be 1 percent of people with all the money and the rest of us in debt to survive.
If there is to ever be a fair balance in the world workers need to be fairly compensated for their labors. Please don't say "The World Isnt Fair". It can be fairer than it is, and the only reason its not is because assholes exist that believe that ridiculous shit.
I firmly believe wealthy people work hard (at least the ones that stay wealthy after being born wealthy generation after generation), but not a single one of them works 1000-1000000 times harder than any one of their employees or anyone else for that matter except maybe chronic welfare people. Its not that I am against a society that has poor people and rich people. Its the disparity in wealth that matters, and if its not corrected it ends up in oligarchy or monarchy and then ultimate failure. Just like the Roman empire, one day we will have everyone on welfare and no-one generating wealth.
The wealthy should actually WANT to pay people better, and should WANT to distribute wealth more fairly, because it will turn out badly for them when the masses of poor decide communism is a good idea. Obviously they arent so smart, because they should take a hint from history like a fucking red hot poker in their eye.
You could argue poor people live better today than 100 years ago so they are wealthier, but I could argue : Slaves lived better than Cavemen, so clearly a slave is wealthier and sharing in the wealth of his society. Slavery Is AOK! When in fact there are wealthy plantation owners that are living like gods in comparison. Like I said, its the disparity in wealth and distribution that matters.
If I could afford to pay bills, not be in massive debt for student loans, and own a three bedroom house so I can raise kids I would be happy. Maybe owning a better guitar and buying a functional car would be nice as well. Unfortunately getting this means I am a slave to the bank for the rest of my life. Serfdom in present form.
Aren't some of the people who run the sites in the US? If thats the case there is jurisdiction over these people for their crimes. Its not that I think internet gambling should be illegal, its that fraud is not the best way to handle your online business. They did in fact commit fraud.
In the US its accomplished by gaming commissions at the state level. So in the case gambling is legal in your state, its better to just gamble in the state. If someone wants to be an idiot and gamble online, thats their problem. There is no real US federal gambling oversight, thought they do have laws about it.
I just got through saying I don't gamble, so I agree that "I should just not gamble". I have a better understanding of odds than most people and it simply isn't worth it. That being said, my dad makes a lot of money playing REAL poker. Ive seen him come home with thousands of dollars at a time every saturday when I was a kid. Texas hold'em at the table is lucrative if you can read people well and also have an understanding of probability. He used to run a poker table and made a lot of money that way as well. At one point he went into business with a corrupt piece of shit that was doing some illegal gambling on the side and the Montana Gaming Commission busted them with handguns and handcuffed him and my father. The reason I know my dad wasnt involved is because hes a very honest man. It wasn't a misdemeanor or a felony, but they penalized him by not allowing a him to have a license to run a table for 5 years.
If some private certifying organization were to replace the government in that role then sure. However a lot of states use a "Gaming Commission" as a way to enforce gambling laws because its a part of tax revenue. They also serve the purpose of making gambling fair (within set tolerances). Whats wrong with using government to make sure that casinos are fair if your state does a lot of gambling and gets tax revenue from it? Its not nannyism, its paying your government for a service you want them to provide and bringing in more money to the state from gambling tourists. Las Vegas and Nevada did quite well for a long time doing this.
Its still fraud. Whether or not online gambling should be legal, they still lied to banks, and created shell companies to launder illegally obtained money. No doubt they knew this day would come someday and have secret accounts overseas. I don't feel sorry for them.
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Good luck spending your money when a disaster makes credit cards no longer work, cash worth the paper its printed on, and gold worth less than food or a good knife. That is the point of government. You invest in sufficient protection to defend yourself from the aforementioned calamities. We also pay into social security for this purpose, but it has been hijacked by the wealthy politicians as a bread-and-circus for the lazy or those who just gave up, as it keeps 'em complacent. We need to retake government, but every time anyone calls for this they still end up voting the same douche bag, corrupt assholes into office. Want to start something? Lets do it together. There are enough of us on / . we could do it, but I have yet to find one person willing to put their efforts where their mouth is.
Id like the rich to actually pay a reasonable amount rather than forcing the middle and lower classes to carry them with their labor, effort and intelligence and also forcing them to pay taxes that cut into the funds they need for their families.
They also artificially create Fritos and Doritos, feed cows a plant material they cannot actually fully digest, make each persons taxes higher, ruin our engines with corn based ethanol, and make all of the insanity an American staple. Good work.
You are basically akin to a religious fundamentalist. I.e., there is no arguing with you because you cannot be convinced to civilly debate with any ounce of logic and/or evidence.
Go for what? Go for viewing things with a free mind? Already been done sir. By "expansive view" do you mean colonialism, raiding, or what?
There are already third-party organizations that certify online gambling sites. No reason for the government to get involved.
This doesn't have much to do with gambling at all. Like money laundering laws what this is really about is taxes. The US government wants to make sure it can track every dollar you make and spend. What's to keep people from moving money around outside the sight of the all-seeing eye? Can't have that.
If you reread my post, I never said "Government oversight" at all. I said impartial oversight. This included private organizations. The point is to make it fair some way, and that is actually the responsibility of the gamblers. Even though I think gambling is among the worst ways to spend your time, I still think you should be able to do it without being unfairly taken advantage of. Just like it should be illegal to sell you a car that looks OK and performs OK short term, but won't get you more than 100 miles before breaking down.
What sort of piss have you been drinking? At one time we had limited government and people who owned other people, i.e. slavery. Then a federal government asserted its authority over another arguable sovereign set of states with smaller government and fixed this problem. Don't even get me wrong. I believe in State's rights, and I would have fought along with my southern ancestors for this, but at the same time I find it hard to believe Black people deserve to be slaves. Big government NOT EQUAL bad government. This is evident by the fact the Chinese are beating us badly, making our efforts look like a joke while loaning us money to support a spend-happy government, and working harder than the average American. Its also evident by the fact the Soviet Union beat us time and time again in science and technology. Even if they failed in the end, they still beat us and continue to appreciate scientists more than rich parasites like the US does. Basically, I am saying big government has its advantages, and so does small. The flow back and forth ends up determining who has the advantage, and I am not certain you will ever be able to predict which is better at any given time.
Why should we be obsessed with our so-called founding fathers' vision of what should be? Should we not determine this for ourselves rather than believing in the infallibility of our ancestors? We are here because of them, but what they thought is a product of the time they existed. Why should we do what they say when in light of new information we can logically determine a better path?
Frankly, there is nothing mandated in the Constitution. Its more of an outline as to how Government should be wholly for the people, not bent to special interests, and should also function minimalistically. It outlines, or gives reference where to look for, how to not be a fucking scum-bag that steps over other peoples rights that are given to them by nature. Unfortunately, this happens every single day of every American's life.
Come on. The feds fund Medicare left and right. They fund Social Security left and right, and they fund Defense left and right. The Planned Parenthood funding amounts to less than one tenth of one percent the defense budget and less than one half of one tenth of one percent of the Social Security and Medicare budget. Furthermore, this program more often than not gives free birth control (NOT ABORTION SINCE ITS ILLEGAL FOR FED FUNDS TO GO TO ABORTION) to woman and men that allows them to responsibly plan their families. I think your efforts to reduce the budget are better spent on solving the poverty and health care access problem that Social Security and Medicare are spending 1500 billion dollars on, or solving the War and Peace problem that out beloved Defense program spends 700 billion dollars on rather worrying about funding an organization that takes up a maximum of 0.3 billion. Learn to understand magnitudes of numbers and interpret numbers rather than make morality part of your argument. There are at least enough US citizens that agree with birth control in the US and also who pay taxes to support it, so stop being selfish with their money.
Odds are your brother was simply a bad player. Don't take it personally, most poker players are bad. Most who think they're good are bad. Poker really is a game of skill. There's a lot of well known and well studied strategy that rests on game theory, statistics, combinatorics, etc. Drop an inexperienced player into a setting with people who know this and they will generally lose, not because anyone's cheating, but because they'll be recognized as really bad players and the really good players will play in such a way as to exploit their errors.
Its not true. He won quite a few tournaments at the time, and he attributes it to the fact that the players were randomized. I realize there is a difference between tourney play and regular play. I actually come from a family of poker players. My dad won quite a few tournaments in Montana and one big one in Reno, but he needed the money for our family so he never tried to invest it (if you call it that) in entrance fees for more prestigious tournaments like the World Series to develop professionally as a player. He sort of toned it down over the last decade or so and now just plays weekends, but he wins about 60 percent of the time and wins more than loses. He used to bring home several thousand dollars at a time since he prefers no-limit poker. My brother basically learned from him. I never was into it very much since it always seemed to require more time to get good than I was willing to put into it, but I do know a thing or two about mathematics and statistics considering Im a graduate math student. Your analysis may be correct, but for which website? Also, cooperating does not change the odds of getting particular cards, but it lets two or more people know what cards YOU don't have, and that basically becomes a game theory problem rather than simply statistics and probablity. My brother did Poker Stars and (I think it was called) Bodog. My brother isn't an idiot either mind you, hes a pharm D student, and he said that it was well known on these websites, at that time, people would cooperate to win the pot.
There has to be laws against fraud, otherwise it would be rampant. Though this particular case may be bullshit, it doesn't matter. I state facts. If it were prohibition I would be a bootlegger. That answer it for you?
I agree with you. Moral or nanny laws are never good for the people. My main point is that if gambling is legal, it should be fair. I.e. the odds must fit the game. If a casino had a trick dealer that would make sure all the players money went to a house player at a Texas Hold'Em table, that is not fair and shouldn't be allowed. Its the same thing as misrepresenting a product and is anti-consumer. Maybe private industry could regulate itself, but I don't see that happen a whole lot.
Its still fraud. Lying about the true nature of a financial transaction is fraud.
Texas Hold 'Em is perfectly winnable with skill. Sure, the rake takes away some money from the table, but think of it as "renting" your chair and paying for the gambling license and operating costs. If you walked into a casino where the dealers were doing tricks with decks so that a house player was winning all your money, then the game is no longer fair. Sports regulates the use of performance enhancing drugs, why should it be different with poker? Maybe it doesn't have to be the government that regulates it, but it has to be impartial for fairness. I don't gamble either way so it doesn't matter to me.
Sure thing. Roads and Road maintenance are a service provided by government that is useful and few would argue is unnecessary. Apparently Idiots that like roads want the government to nanny us because if they really wanted to they could saw down trees, blow holes through mountains, or off road it in their expensive Humvee's loaded with explosives and chainsaws. I could fucking list them all day. The point is that if a people want the government to provide a service to them, they have a right to fund it. You have a right to disagree and try to convince people otherwise, but just because you don't like something doesn't mean it fucking matters at all. If people want to gamble (and I am not one of these people) and they want government regulation bad enough, they will get it regardless of what you think.
Its not nannyism. Its funding the government for a service you want them to provide.
You are right. We are entitled to nothing FOR FREE, but we are entitled to benefit from the fruits of our labors which is typically usurped by the wealthy class. Its a big pyramid scheme. Skim a little off of each of your employees and you will have a lot. Its happened all throughout history. If an engineer generates 1 million in revenue for his company, he will only see about a hundred thousand of that. The CEO will get a huge bonus, and the upper management will get raises all based on his effort.
A company is not its board room, a company is its employees and investors. If employees are generating more revenue they deserve to share in it proportionally as the investors did for putting money down on the company in the first place. What is happening today is a dramatic shift towards investors getting all the benefits, while the employees get the same wage regardless. Typically, the rich are the investors so they get richer and richer, and pay everyone else less and less so they can't become investors in the first place. The end result will be 1 percent of people with all the money and the rest of us in debt to survive.
If there is to ever be a fair balance in the world workers need to be fairly compensated for their labors. Please don't say "The World Isnt Fair". It can be fairer than it is, and the only reason its not is because assholes exist that believe that ridiculous shit.
I firmly believe wealthy people work hard (at least the ones that stay wealthy after being born wealthy generation after generation), but not a single one of them works 1000-1000000 times harder than any one of their employees or anyone else for that matter except maybe chronic welfare people. Its not that I am against a society that has poor people and rich people. Its the disparity in wealth that matters, and if its not corrected it ends up in oligarchy or monarchy and then ultimate failure. Just like the Roman empire, one day we will have everyone on welfare and no-one generating wealth.
The wealthy should actually WANT to pay people better, and should WANT to distribute wealth more fairly, because it will turn out badly for them when the masses of poor decide communism is a good idea. Obviously they arent so smart, because they should take a hint from history like a fucking red hot poker in their eye.
You could argue poor people live better today than 100 years ago so they are wealthier, but I could argue : Slaves lived better than Cavemen, so clearly a slave is wealthier and sharing in the wealth of his society. Slavery Is AOK! When in fact there are wealthy plantation owners that are living like gods in comparison. Like I said, its the disparity in wealth and distribution that matters.
If I could afford to pay bills, not be in massive debt for student loans, and own a three bedroom house so I can raise kids I would be happy. Maybe owning a better guitar and buying a functional car would be nice as well. Unfortunately getting this means I am a slave to the bank for the rest of my life. Serfdom in present form.
Aren't some of the people who run the sites in the US? If thats the case there is jurisdiction over these people for their crimes. Its not that I think internet gambling should be illegal, its that fraud is not the best way to handle your online business. They did in fact commit fraud.
In the US its accomplished by gaming commissions at the state level. So in the case gambling is legal in your state, its better to just gamble in the state. If someone wants to be an idiot and gamble online, thats their problem. There is no real US federal gambling oversight, thought they do have laws about it.
Yeah. That sucks, but these dudes did commit fraud in the US. PS My brother didn't "know a guy" he IS the guy that found out about the cheating.
I just got through saying I don't gamble, so I agree that "I should just not gamble". I have a better understanding of odds than most people and it simply isn't worth it. That being said, my dad makes a lot of money playing REAL poker. Ive seen him come home with thousands of dollars at a time every saturday when I was a kid. Texas hold'em at the table is lucrative if you can read people well and also have an understanding of probability. He used to run a poker table and made a lot of money that way as well. At one point he went into business with a corrupt piece of shit that was doing some illegal gambling on the side and the Montana Gaming Commission busted them with handguns and handcuffed him and my father. The reason I know my dad wasnt involved is because hes a very honest man. It wasn't a misdemeanor or a felony, but they penalized him by not allowing a him to have a license to run a table for 5 years.
If some private certifying organization were to replace the government in that role then sure. However a lot of states use a "Gaming Commission" as a way to enforce gambling laws because its a part of tax revenue. They also serve the purpose of making gambling fair (within set tolerances). Whats wrong with using government to make sure that casinos are fair if your state does a lot of gambling and gets tax revenue from it? Its not nannyism, its paying your government for a service you want them to provide and bringing in more money to the state from gambling tourists. Las Vegas and Nevada did quite well for a long time doing this.
So then really they are committing fraud and money laundering, not so much the fact that their business is illegal. Thanks.
Its still fraud. Whether or not online gambling should be legal, they still lied to banks, and created shell companies to launder illegally obtained money. No doubt they knew this day would come someday and have secret accounts overseas. I don't feel sorry for them.