Web Play Land

In the past couple of days, I’ve been dong a bit of research and thinking. However limited my thinking may be on a subject upon which I am notoriously biased… I’ve been trying to come up with a solution, one way or the other. Not there yet.

Wouldn’t any enforcement be subject to the claim of discriminatory enforcement? That is, enforcing restrictions against one sort of entity and not another? For example, every casino has many many ATM and credit card machines placed there for the precise purpose of getting money to gamble. The banks of origin of the various cards are often out-of-state, as are the folks using them. There seems to be little or no difference between getting money to use at a legal casino in, say, Nevada and getting money to use at a legal online gaming site based in, say, Antigua. There is still the interstate/iinternational access to money. Taking this argument to its logical extension, it would also be illegal to accept money for betting that has crossed interstate lines in any fashion. It starts getting absurd. If one further extends this rationale to lotteries, state paramutuel betting, etc., it becomes untenable.

The key seems to be to educate a majority of Congressmen and Senators. First of all, educate them to understand that poker is not a problem activity. It is entertainment, and, for some, a livelihood. It is no more subject to abuse (and is no doubt much less subject to abuse) than alcohol and smoking, and is far less damaging to health and welfare. Rather than an “immoral” enterprise, it can be entrepreneurial and invigorating. A game of skill, played against other players, not against house odds. A game one can study for and improve upon one’s skills. They need to rethink the “immorality” issue. We cannot let them continue to go with the easy knee-jerk reaction that poker must be bad.

Then educate them about the revenues involved. In a country that has been adding to the national debt by leaps and bounds, online poker has the potential, if licensed, regulated and taxed, to be a terrific source of revenue. Perhaps it would be possible to simply permit already existing casinos and similar state-owned enterprises to link through to online sites, thus permitting their citizens to enjoy the great game of poker while, at the same time, substantially increasing monies coming into the state through licensing/taxing.

Finally educate them that regulation, not criminalization, is the key to avoiding money-laudering, fraud and preventing children from playing poker. Regulation and cooperation could help the police locate any terrorist and criminals who might be trying to launder money through such venues. Criminalization leads to subterfuge; regulation leads to openness.

The bill may be on its way to being signed into law. But laws can change. They can be revised, rewritten, rethought, overturned as knee-jerk reactions give way to a more considered approach.