Poker on the internet – not if you’re an American!
One of the more ridiculous things about America is that internet gambling is still illegal. This week we learn that the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) is to spend $3 million (wow!) lobbying Capitol Hill for a change in the law. Now it has to be at least surprising that in a country where, seemingly, anyone that can prove they’re not mentally unstable can walk into store and buy a hand-gun – no one is allowed to gamble on a poker game over the internet. Let alone even say place a bet on the outcome of a football or baseball game!
If American adults can be trusted to buy a handgun, rifle or even an assault machine gun -why do their lawmakers not deem them responsible enough to be able to gamble in online poker rooms? What exactly do they think is the difference between playing poker in a club or casino and on the internet? Do they seriously think that the moral turpitude of the nation will be irretrievably broken by allowing online poker and gambling? Similar arguments were put forward in Europe, some by supposedly intelligent people; along the lines that online gambling would mean people would lose the will to work – choosing instead to play poker all day long on their computer. That children wouldn’t be protected from the lure of gambling and would sink into a life of crime to pay for the gambling addictions they succumbed to in their youth; and that people would lose all sense of proportion and gamble away all of their money – unable to stop their addiction.
The reality has, of course, been quite different. That’s not to say their aren’t people who choose to play poker professionally, that some people will always find themselves addicted to something not entirely in their best interests nor that children shouldn’t be protected from premature exposure to gambling. However, all of those things are also risks in life in general – not just the result of the internet.
So, I say good luck to the PPA – and you’re going to need it. As, let’s face it, gambling and poker in particular is big business and the businesses already running it won’t want to lose their slice of the pie. Already the big football and baseball clubs are preparing to fight any liberalizing of the internet gambling laws – simply because they want to retain control of their gambling revenue. If the big casinos aren’t allowed to monopolise any American poker and gambling websites, they too will undoubtedly counter-lobby against the PPA. However, the biggest problem is that with a poker or gambling website being based anywhere in the world, apart from existing sporting organisations being against the idea – the American government will never allow it, as they’d start to lose tax-dollars from gambling revenue!
Will Las Vegas agree to online poker law reforms?
Just returning to the craziness of the ‘no internet gambling’ situation at present and dichotomies around it in America. Apparently, in Las Vegas (yes Las Vegas) you can see city buses advertising internet poker and gambling websites. Now how ironic is that? The home of casino based poker and gambling in America – advertising something in competition with itself, but that you can’t actually do?