I think what a lot of people don't realize is the monetary effect of playing in a game where the house takes a portion of the cut (known as "the rake" in poker).
In poker, everytime someone wins the hand and collects the pot, the house takes their share of the rake from the pot and the winner often doesn't even notice, since they are now a pile of chips richer. However, when you start putting the numbers together of the average pot, number of hands per game and average buy-in per player, you realize something rather disconcerning: the house rake busts one person at the table per hour. Over a ten hour span, this means that the entire table should theoretically be busted out.
What happens of course, is that the skilled players usually walk away with a fraction of the non-skilled player and the house cleans up the rest by virtue of being there. The downfall is thus that the non-skilled players (aka "suckers") will and eventually do get tired of putting money back into a system where they constantly lose.
The truth is that poker is a recreational pasttime not unlike most other there, such as video games. And like video games, there are those players who are hardcore and live to play (this becomes literal in poker) and those who play for fun. Some people just don't have the effort, time or I dare say, the mental capacity to excel in competetive games. But unlike counter-strike, where you can still have fun being mediocre, you lose money when you're mediocre in poker.
Two cents from a winning poker player of many years, anyways.
From a WTO ruling last year: "The ruling followed a suit by Antigua and Barbuda, claiming U.S. restrictions amounted to unfair trade practices. The economy of the Caribbean nation relies heavily on Internet gambling. The nation points out that the United States allows gambling within its borders. And, in the case of state lotteries, the gambling is sometimes government-sponsored.
The Caribbean country views the WTO ruling as a victory. It sees two options for the United States. The first is that the United States must ban all gambling. The second option would be to grant offshore companies access to the market. The Justice Department did not return calls for comment."
So, it's interesting that the Australian government is taking a stance against Google and online gambling, considering that they are part of the WTO as well. I imagine that this will only leave them open to a suit by the small countries to force them to open their borders up to online gambling.
Then again, the WTO ruling hasn't had much effect on the States, where online gambling is still in pretty murky areas. On the other hand, one look at Google for searches such as poker or online poker and you'll find ad-sense placements filled to the brim. I think until someone actually slaps the search engines on the wrist and sets clear precedence, they will continue to see it as a (lucrative) revenue stream.
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I think what a lot of people don't realize is the monetary effect of playing in a game where the house takes a portion of the cut (known as "the rake" in poker).
In poker, everytime someone wins the hand and collects the pot, the house takes their share of the rake from the pot and the winner often doesn't even notice, since they are now a pile of chips richer. However, when you start putting the numbers together of the average pot, number of hands per game and average buy-in per player, you realize something rather disconcerning: the house rake busts one person at the table per hour. Over a ten hour span, this means that the entire table should theoretically be busted out.
What happens of course, is that the skilled players usually walk away with a fraction of the non-skilled player and the house cleans up the rest by virtue of being there. The downfall is thus that the non-skilled players (aka "suckers") will and eventually do get tired of putting money back into a system where they constantly lose.
The truth is that poker is a recreational pasttime not unlike most other there, such as video games. And like video games, there are those players who are hardcore and live to play (this becomes literal in poker) and those who play for fun. Some people just don't have the effort, time or I dare say, the mental capacity to excel in competetive games. But unlike counter-strike, where you can still have fun being mediocre, you lose money when you're mediocre in poker.
Two cents from a winning poker player of many years, anyways.
From a WTO ruling last year: "The ruling followed a suit by Antigua and Barbuda, claiming U.S. restrictions amounted to unfair trade practices. The economy of the Caribbean nation relies heavily on Internet gambling. The nation points out that the United States allows gambling within its borders. And, in the case of state lotteries, the gambling is sometimes government-sponsored.
The Caribbean country views the WTO ruling as a victory. It sees two options for the United States. The first is that the United States must ban all gambling. The second option would be to grant offshore companies access to the market. The Justice Department did not return calls for comment."
So, it's interesting that the Australian government is taking a stance against Google and online gambling, considering that they are part of the WTO as well. I imagine that this will only leave them open to a suit by the small countries to force them to open their borders up to online gambling.
Then again, the WTO ruling hasn't had much effect on the States, where online gambling is still in pretty murky areas. On the other hand, one look at Google for searches such as poker or online poker and you'll find ad-sense placements filled to the brim. I think until someone actually slaps the search engines on the wrist and sets clear precedence, they will continue to see it as a (lucrative) revenue stream.