Why is online poker illegal?

[Fredrik]

Sure, but I don't think a poker site registered in Somalia would get a lot of visitors, really.

Sites registered in Antigua, Costa Rica, Aruba, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Cyprus, Malta etc, all get a lot of visitors. The second largest site in the world, Full Tilt Poker, is registered in Aruba, and they are refusing to answer questions about where they are really located. They could be in Somalia for all we know.

 

[gdnp]

Sure, but I don't think a poker site registered in Somalia would get a lot of visitors, really.

Well, Let's check.

Full tilt poker is licensed by the Kahnawake (Mohawk) gaming commission in Canada.
Pokerstars is registered in the Isle of Mann
Partypoker is regulated by the Alderney Gambling control commission and the government of Gibralter
Pacificpoker operates out of Gibralter
Pokerroom.com is registered in Gibralter
Absolute poker is located in the Kahnawake mohawk nation
Titan poker is licensed by the Kahnawake gaming commission.
Bodog poker is licensed by the Kahnawake gaming commission and in Antigua.
Players Only poker is licensed by the government of the Netherlands Antilles

OK, so no Somalia there, but can you really vouch for the integrity of any of these particular governments and commissions?

 

[L The Detective]

And the point Rob was making (and you're missing) is that reading someone does not require being in the physical presence of the other person.

That's very true. The importance of tells is overrated by the average person. They are important, but not nearly as important as betting patterns. The most effective way to be able to "read" a player is to know his patterns, which can help to predict his range of hands on any given play. Playing online makes this substantially easier than it is in live play, because of the ability to store a database, and also because you play many more hands so you gather data more quickly.

Personally I think that poker should be legal. It is gambling, but it is also a skill game, and it's fair. I'm not sure how I feel about other forms of gambling... to me, a casino is not much different from the 3 card monty guy in the street; it's just the corporation version of that guy. However the Casino technically isn't physically cheating it's players, it is simply preying upon thier ignorance of math and probablity. A casino basically exists to prey upon the ignorant and decieve people out of thier money. Having said that, poker is a little different because you aren't playing against the casino... you are merely paying the casino for the right to play in thier house, so I don't see that as deception.

Whether gambling in general should be illegal depends on what you feel the role of government should be, and if you think it needs to protect people from thier own ignorance. I don't think it's a black and white question. But poker is a legitimate skill game, against other players on an equal level, so I view that as different.

 

[gdnp]

That's very true. The importance of tells is very overrated by the average person. The are important, but not nearly as important as betting patterns. The most effective way to be able to "read" a player is to know his better patterns, and use that as an indicator of his range of hands. Playing online actually makes this substantially easier than it is in live play, because of the ability to store data about players in a database, and also because you play many more hands so you gather data much more quickly.

I agree. It would be relatively easy to create software that will tell you the odds of various outcomes based on the cards that you hold and those showing, and perhaps one that would devises a betting strategy based on it. But if you followed that "optimum" betting strategy religiously, then you would telegraph your hands to your opponents. There needs to be enough of a random element to your behavior that your opponents are never too sure what you have.

 

[geni]

* Absolute Poker didn't lose many customers because of this. (The poker players of the world proved to all the poker sites that they can abuse us any way they want without risking a significant financial loss. Seriously, why would any site bother to make anything more than a minimal effort to prevent cheating after this?).

Allowing it to happen once through a method not avialible to most is one thing but repeated issues would be more likely to upset people.

 

[Damien Evans]

It is illegal in the USA because it cannot be taxed and regulated by the US government.

Are you only talking online games here, or casinos as well?

If the first I agree, if the second then you're completely wrong.

 

[L The Detective]

I agree. It would be relatively easy to create software that will tell you the odds of various outcomes based on the cards that you hold and those showing, and perhaps one that would devises a betting strategy based on it. But if you followed that "optimum" betting strategy religiously, then you would telegraph your hands to your opponents. There needs to be enough of a random element to your behavior that your opponents are never too sure what you have.

Against very good players, it's true that you do need to mix your game up a lot. Against less observant players, there's no need to be random, rather you should figure out their betting patterns and then play in such a way to optimize your advantage over them. If your opponent is observant, he will notice and adapt, and you need to adapt your play to stay one step ahead. But the average online player isn't observant enough to adapt, so if you know his patterns and use the correct counter-strategy, you can easily exploit his behavior.

 

[technoextreme]

Also you must believe that off track betting should be illegal for the same reasons you are banning online poker. Yet congress passed laws making online poker illegal while giving off track betting an exemption.

You mean it is really easy as hell to cheat on off track betting? There is no way to regulate given the nature of the internet which means (AND IT HAS HAPPENED) that you get the insider who cheats.

 

[luchog]

It's illegal because it's international companies based outside the US, and the US governkment doesn't like people having any fun that they can't tax.

 

[Uncayimmy]

It's illegal because it's international companies based outside the US, and the US governkment doesn't like people having any fun that they can't tax.

Why do you think that they can't tax on-line gambling? It's very nature makes it much easier to tax. Cash transactions are hard to track. Electronic transactions are fairly easy.

On-line gambling is supposedly prohibited by the Federal Wire Act, but I believe it technically only applies to sports gambling. Gambling in general is legal under federal law, but states can regulate or prohibit it. The arguments are typically that it invites political corruption, increases crime, allows compulsive gamblers to lose all their money, and unfairly "taxes" the poor. In my opinion, though, I think for many it's a moral issue, and the concerns are merely rationalizations.

I also believe that those engaged in legal gambling don't want to allow other forms of gambling because they don't want to lose business. That includes all those states running their own gambling enterprises known as the lottery.

Personally, I'd feel better if the USA legalized it and regulated it. If they are to prohibit anything, I say prohibit off-shore companies from offering on-line gambling.

 

[Donal]

I like how Fredrik claims that fraud over the internet is impossible to track, yet his big example is of the players themselves discovering the fraud.

Imagine if they allowed you to run internet poker from the US. You'd be subject to federal laws and investigators. You couldn't pull the crap Absolute did if you had the FBI's forensic accounting department watching you.

The reality is, it is actually easier to track money through electronic transfers than it is person to person cash exchanges.

Of course, the silly laws here send all those millions upon millions of dollars to countries like Antigua and Aruba where the respective government have neither the resources nor the inclination to investigate fraud.

Also strange about this that two of the senators that championed this bill (Bill Frist and Robert Goodlatte) have ties to the horse racing and breeding community.

 

[Beerina]

Why is online poker illegal?

Because it's possible for existant supernatural entities other than Yahweh and his cronies to alter the physics of the universe to help you in exchange for following them instead. Devils, demons, the Egyptian gods, Leviathan, Behemoth, and so forth.

Ok, the last two are dead, so technically they can't help. But you get the picture. God put a nix on this, and thus gambling is evil* because it is a primary source of alternate-entity patronage, along with prognostication and spells.


* evil : adj 1. In accordance with a power center other than the one that's lording over you. a. The Canaanites are evil because they say Yahweh was just another yokel in their pantheon. b. The Republicans are evil because they say reducing the size of government is good. 2. Not infinitely nasty; less than infinitely nasty. Satan is evil because he doesn't wanna help Yahweh make sure almost everybody is resurrected and tortured for ever and ever because they took a peter in the pooper or because they didn't call Yahweh "good" for doing this.

 

[Suddenly]

Well, Let's check.

Full tilt poker is licensed by the Kahnawake (Mohawk) gaming commission in Canada.
Pokerstars is registered in the Isle of Mann
Partypoker is regulated by the Alderney Gambling control commission and the government of Gibralter
Pacificpoker operates out of Gibralter
Pokerroom.com is registered in Gibralter
Absolute poker is located in the Kahnawake mohawk nation
Titan poker is licensed by the Kahnawake gaming commission.
Bodog poker is licensed by the Kahnawake gaming commission and in Antigua.
Players Only poker is licensed by the government of the Netherlands Antilles

OK, so no Somalia there, but can you really vouch for the integrity of any of these particular governments and commissions?

Isle of Mann is pretty solid. Kahnawake is from what I understand little more than a criminal enterprise.

I can in general vouch for the legitimacy of pokerstars, seeing I personally know many of the people that run it... although now they are out of the country for the time being and I don't see them anymore.

The thing that a lot of people don't grasp is that online poker presents an unprecidented opportunity to statistically analyze poker hands. The UB/Absolute scandal was unearthed by players who had saved millions of hand histories and noticed that a player was winning at what was a statistically impossible level. They then more closely analyzed the play and saw the player was acting as if he could see the cards of the opponent, and went from there.

The sites, at least the legitimate and established ones use programs that analyze hands with full knowledge (after the fact) of hole cards that send up red flags when the data suggests a pattern that indicates collusion. You trade some (in part illusory) security because of no direct observation, but you gain much more by being able to track data.

Similar things could be said about internet sports wagering. The lack of legitimate betting houses in the US makes it far easier to fix games and get away with it. If you have legal internet wagering, most people are going to use it and illegal bookies will lose quite a bit of market share. It thus becomes harder to place bets that can't be tracked.



Anyway, a lot of the debate on the house floor about this bill centered around the fact that it was sucking money out of the US and wasn't helping GDP. Whether that is why it is illegal, it is a part of why it was outlawed.

This of course violates several free trade agreements and as I understand the US has some liability for doing so.

Barney Frank is da man:

His speech in part:

But the fundamental point is this. If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it because it doesn't add to the GDP or it has no macroeconomic benefit. Are we all to take home calculators and, until we have satisfied the gentleman from Iowa that we are being socially useful, we abstain from recreational activities that we choose?

 

[Fredrik]

I like how Fredrik claims that fraud over the internet is impossible to track, yet his big example is of the players themselves discovering the fraud.

When did I say that?

 

[rwguinn]

Isle of Mann is pretty solid. Kahnawake is from what I understand little more than a criminal enterprise.

I can in general vouch for the legitimacy of pokerstars, seeing I personally know many of the people that run it... although now they are out of the country for the time being and I don't see them anymore.

The thing that a lot of people don't grasp is that online poker presents an unprecidented opportunity to statistically analyze poker hands. The UB/Absolute scandal was unearthed by players who had saved millions of hand histories and noticed that a player was winning at what was a statistically impossible level. They then more closely analyzed the play and saw the player was acting as if he could see the cards of the opponent, and went from there.

The sites, at least the legitimate and established ones use programs that analyze hands with full knowledge (after the fact) of hole cards that send up red flags when the data suggests a pattern that indicates collusion. You trade some (in part illusory) security because of no direct observation, but you gain much more by being able to track data.

Similar things could be said about internet sports wagering. The lack of legitimate betting houses in the US makes it far easier to fix games and get away with it. If you have legal internet wagering, most people are going to use it and illegal bookies will lose quite a bit of market share. It thus becomes harder to place bets that can't be tracked.



Anyway, a lot of the debate on the house floor about this bill centered around the fact that it was sucking money out of the US and wasn't helping GDP. Whether that is why it is illegal, it is a part of why it was outlawed.

This of course violates several free trade agreements and as I understand the US has some liability for doing so.

Barney Frank is da man:

His speech in part:

Here's the problem with that concept--
When people start losing money that they freely chose to risk, they start looking for somebody to blame...
It's happened with brick and mortar casinos, too--not to mention the stock market and penny stocks, etc...

 

[godless dave]

If that's true, in what sense is it illegal?

In the US, gambling is regulated by the individual states. Most ban almost all gambling and strictly regulate what's left.

 

[geni]

Isle of Mann is pretty solid.

Just don't ask why a bit over £500 million in Kaupthing left the place just before the bank collapsed.

 

[EGarrett]

Can someone give me one good reason that online poker should be illegal?


The most common reason is that it can be addicting and someone may lose all their money. Well in response to that, i say if you believe that is a valid reason, then you MUST also believe we should make cigarettes illegal because they are addicting and kill people. Also you must believe that we should close all bars and ban all alcohol as it can be addicting and people die in drunken driving accidents and overdoses.

Also you must believe that off track betting should be illegal for the same reasons you are banning online poker. Yet congress passed laws making online poker illegal while giving off track betting an exemption.

Tens of millions of people in the USA play poker and millions of people in the USA play online poker.

So please, give me one good reason why it should be illegal.

I had a girl offer to send me naked pictures of herself in exchange for a donation to her account so she could just keep playing a little longer.

It's not like cigarettes because there's an upper limit to how much you can smoke. There's no upper limit to the amount you can deposit and lose in a single session of online poker.

 

[Blackadder]

What planet are you living on?
Poker is a game of skill-reading your opponents, deciding whether he's for real or bluffing, and whether your cards are worth gambling on. That skill requires face-to-face. Otherwise it's just a game of chance.

What planet are you living on? I was able to make a solid $500-$1000 on average a month for most of 2005-2006 on online poker. Because I had the skills.

why didn't I continue? Because it became incredibly BORING and because I was not SKILLED enough to upgrade another level to higher blinds. If I could, I would increase my winnings to $2000+ and stop working. but in reality I started loosing to more skilled opponents. Also around that time too many skilled people from all over the world showed up, making it harder and harder.

I do agree when 10,000 people enter a poker tournament it's mostly luck who end up winning. But put me with 8 newbies at a table and I guarantee that I will win 5 out of 10 times

 

[gdnp]

What planet are you living on? I was able to make a solid $500-$1000 on average a month for most of 2005-2006 on online poker. Because I had the skills.

why didn't I continue? Because it became incredibly BORING and because I was not SKILLED enough to upgrade another level to higher blinds. If I could, I would increase my winnings to $2000+ and stop working. but in reality I started loosing to more skilled opponents. Also around that time too many skilled people from all over the world showed up, making it harder and harder.

I do agree when 10,000 people enter a poker tournament it's mostly luck who end up winning. But put me with 8 newbies at a table and I guarantee that I will win 5 out of 10 times

I guess it comes down to how much you can win per hour, and how reliably.