Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Barney Frank wants gambling legal but should poker players?

Firstly let me say that I am a big supporter of the Poker Players Alliance and the work that they have done to get this agenda to this point is nothing short of a miracle.  It is often reported that playing online poker is illegal, in fact, when I say that I play online poker the uninformed often think I am doing so against the law.  Which is not the case.  But I am not going to get into that because most people who would read this blog are aware of the distinction (long and short is that the most people think that the current law is not applicable to anything other than sports gambling and possibly not even that). The argument for legalization and regulation is that without it getting funds online (or possibly in the future offline) could potentially become more difficult.  Which is certainly a fair point and should definitely be a reason to consider backing a regulation bill.  Let me back up for a second though, there are two bills, one calls for regulation and another postpones the UIEGA rules until the end of 2010.  The second of which is easy, everyone should be in favor of that.  It is the first one that is less clear.

Opens the door for expansion of gambling in an unprecedented way

For the most part I believe that people should be left alone even when something could be deemed harmful to a small few (i.e. gambling or drugs).  But can we all just be honest for a second? Gambling is not good for people, this law would not just make poker legal, games with a house edge would also be allowed.  I have always believed that people should find gambling not the other way around.  Any expansion of gambling that allows for advertisements that are outside of the scope of gaming I do not believe I am for that.  So I think that is an important caveat I would like to see (though I doubt I will).  It would seem that a lot of the smart people involved in gambling are Game Theory experts, in my opinion one way to get people off the fence and onto our side would be to offer up marketing restrictions.  Let's create a system for advertisers that allows for this to remain a game for adults that found gaming and was not coerced into doing so.

States Rights

No matter what the federal government does the States will always retain rights and in this case there is a provision in the bill that allows for states to "opt-out".  This is probably the single biggest point that people have a problem with regarding this bill because in theory they are going to make things a lot tougher on the sites that will pass on regulation and unregulated sites will be the only options for people that live in states that opt out.  Ultimately I highly doubt this will be a huge issue but if some of the bigger sites do go down the path of regulation and the unregulated sites start to gain momentum you could really see some hard lobbying for stronger enforcement that might criminalize players.  Currently there are states that have laws like this but they are mostly not enforced.  That could change whether this law is passed or not but certainly if companies in the United States that choose to be regulated fear an unfair advantage it would be hard to imagine a politician that would not listen.

The anti-trust implications of legalizing online poker

One thing I have not really gotten a good answer on would be the anti-trust implications of poker being legal federally.  To my mind if a state were to allow casino's but not allow online poker that would violate anti-trust laws.  Once again I am a novice but I imagine this is a bit of a consideration.

This is far from over

There is much more to this story and I will add to this article as they come up.  Please use the comments to help along the discussion.  The long story short comes down to this, will regulation be better than what we have now? I really do not think it will.  I am in support of this bill and the regulation effort because I think it COULD be good for poker overall.  No one really knows how this will play out and as far as I can tell it could go a lot of ways.  For the people that are for legalization and regulation I think we should be open to hearing the side of the people that are against it and why.  This includes poker players and our fiercest opponents.  Without converting some non-believers to believers we have no chance.  Also I reserve the right to change my mind because there is only so much I am willing to give up.  I think playing poker online is a civil right since it is a game of skill, if part of the solution is to tax the players to death just so a few more people can walk the streets of Vegas I am not sure I am for that.

Here is where you can follow the progress of the bills:

H.R. 2266: To delay for 1 year the date for compliance of the UIGEA H.R. 2267: Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act H.R. 2268: Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2009
Tags: Articles   legalized gambling   UIEGA repeal  

7 responses to Barney Frank wants gambling legal but should poker players?

Leave a reply

	Name (Required)
	Mail (Will not be published) (Required)
	Website (Required)