Thursday, April 30, 2009

Running Aces and Canterbury Park versus online poker

Just an update, the State of Minnesota decided to rescind it's order, you are all now free to go back and check raise virtual fish. -Beanie Part of the idea when legislation like this is either passed or interpreted to take the rights against citizens is that it benefits someone.  So I am going to detail who could benefit the most and why.  Political pressure gets this type of stuff done and these people have lobbyist.  The fact is that someone is behind us losing our civil liberties.  Here is the most logical list.

Our potential list of enemies

Canterbury Park - When Canterbury opened there was no online poker to speak of but they did have competition, local unregulated games.  These games took a $3 rake.  Preceding Canterbury's opening ($4 and $5 rake) all of the local games were busted.  No one was bothered for years then all of a sudden all of these "private games" were all over the front page of the newspaper.  It was hardly a coincidence. Every year Canterbury Park's Fall Classic brings a ton of poker players to their card room.  I doubt poker players would be so inclined if they found out that Canterbury Park was pushing this anti-poker agenda. Running Aces - If you are not familiar with them they are the card room on the north side of the city, they operate as a harness racing track which is basically a rouse for running a poker room.  To run a poker room in the State of Minnesota you need to have a license for horse racing, that was Canterbury's way of making the barrier to entry tough to keep their monopoly.  Most legislators are notoriously anti-gaming (unless of course it benefits their constituency) so when they passed the measure for Canterbury to legally deal cards it was almost inconceivable that someone would spend the money it would take to build a horse racing track (an obvious loser without the benefit of poker). Even with the same high rakes that Canterbury charges Running Aces has not had roaring success and locally it is well known that they blame this on a lot of factors.  I can only imagine what it is like for a casino manager to ask a customer why he/she has not come in lately and constantly get the answer that they have just been playing online.  That might get a little tough to hear as you are laying people off. Mystic Lake and Treasure Island - I actually would be surprised if these were the culprits behind this latest push.  Much of the gaming done on the Indian Reservations (they do have very powerful lobbies in the state and contribute to legislators that help their causes in large sums) is table games and slots.  While online casino's likely affect them I doubt it would be enough to motivate them politically.  Mystic Lake does not have poker, most people speculate that if they were to add poker that would give the state the hammer they need for Canterbury to get slots.  The State receives $0 from the native american casino revenues (unlike states like Connecticut).  While Treasure Island does have a card room it is only a few tables and really is no competition for Canterbury or Running Aces. The Christian Right and or any politician looking to make a name for themselves on the back of online gaming -  this of course is always the wild card when it comes to any political debate and our governor Tim Pawlenty has aspirations much higher than his current office.  He was widely rumored as a candidate to run with John McCain before Sarah Palin stole that thunder.  On election night (a little over two years ago) many Minnesotan's went to bed with the idea that they would wake up with a new governor, the race was looking like a landslide.  Pawlenty then pulled the race out of a hat in the middle of the night to win a narrow victory.  So Minnesota elections can be tricky (as you may have heard).  While there is no shortage of gaming options in our state most of those options  were not approved by the electorate, they were passed by some other means.  When Minnesotan's have had a chance to vote, by in large they have voted against gambling.  There is really no one on our side either, the liberals want to save us from ourselves and the conservatives think that gambling hurts the Baby Jesus.

Some Geographic Context

I would imagine most people reading this article do not know very much about the EXACT geography of the State of Minnesota.  Virtually all of the people in the state live in the Twin Cities which is located about 10-15 miles from the border of Wisconsin.  Most of the gambling available is also located in that area (though on the outskirts).  Whether you want to go to Canterbury Downs, Running Aces, Mystic Lake or Treasure Island you have a heck of a drive in front of you.  Depending on where you are in the city it is almost always a thirty minute drive.

The taxes myth

One of the prevailing theories on why online poker is being attacked is because these amounts do not generate tax revenue. I am here to tell you that the money generated is substantial. Let's say you are a high stakes player and suddenly $40,000 shows up in your bank account you better be paying taxes on that money or you will be going to jail. This idea that poker players do not pay taxes is ridiculous, not only do most of the people that I know personally pay taxes we pay a TON of taxes. As a rule you can not carry over losses, so poker players do more than their share when it comes to taxes.

We think of ourselves better than this makes us look

Minnesotan's are characterized in movies and television as a lovable almost huggable group of dumb oaf's.  We hate this.  We are the state that brought you Prince and Bob Dylan.  We elect politicians like Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone but we also are the state of the new breed of Republican leaders like Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty (and yes occasionally we elect a professional wrestler).  We happen to have some very good poker players as well, which is a product of one of the best educational systems in the country. Many free speech advocate's consider ISP blocking (internet service providers) a slippery slope because it can not be done precisely.  Which of course is all besides the point considering that when you play online poker you are not doing anything illegal.  This is the reason it is a violation of our civil liberties. This makes us look like idiots Minnesota, we are better than this.  Make it go away!
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