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My thoughts and why I'm not worried (long)

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  1. alekos alekos is offline

    Alpharetta, GA
    United States

    Posts: 126
    Joined: Mar 05

    Oct 2nd, 2006 (10/2/2006 6:46pm)

    So, we all woke up this morning to the alarming news that partypoker will be suspending US accounts. Now, while this is a legitimate reason to worry, and there will obviously be negative effects for us as a result of the new legislation, I believe we should be optimistic, and for the most part completely disregard the fact that this legislation was passed. If we take a look at American history, gambling has always been a pretty hot issue, and is deeply rooted into American culture. If we look closer, we will find that people who wanted to gamble did, despite the law, and you will see within the next year what this important observation of human nature actually means:

    <span>People who want to gamble online WILL gamble online</span>

    when i first signed up to ultimatebet, i could not transfer money from my bank account or my credit card ANYWAY...my bank and credit card already disallowed these transactions unless I specifically called them and requested it, so I said whatever, I'll use Neteller. Neteller is fast and easy, and there are alternatives if you don't like Neteller.

    <span>The US government will NOT stop Neteller, Firepay, or similar institutions</span>

    I honestly don't think they will succeed in stopping Neteller or Firepay transactions, but if anybody has some insight as to why I may be wrong on this issue, please elaborate. This would be extremely difficult to do in any piece of legislation. Think about it, you would need a clause that disallows "transfer of money to third parties who facilitate the deposit of money onto online gambling sites." Wouldnt that include ANY foreign banks? This is about as far as legislation can go: stopping deposits. The only other thing they can do is explicitly state that online gambling is illegal and make it a punishable offense, which leads me to another point:

    <span>The US government cannot ENFORCE a ban on online gambling on an individual level

    </span>They can't even control music piracy, what can they possibly do against people gambling online? Absolutely nothing, so who is going to be scared? You think the fish will go away? Think again, the fish are the same people who download music from Ares and Limewire, and the same people that download movies from bittorrent day in and day out, knowing very well that it is illegal, and they don't care

    So we have all heard the saying that history repeats itself, well guess what, the US government is trying to prohibit online gambling, as they have prohibited gambling and drinking in the past. But nobody ever stopped gambling or drinking illegaly. People always valued enjoyment and quality of life over the minor consequences for these small crimes. In the short term, online gambling will take a hit, but will even out in the long term as people realize this law in essence means nothing. I just feel bad for partygaming making such a rash and stupid decision to let go of 70% of their market for no reason

    Also a side note about the effectiveness of our democracy. We elect representatives to represent the people and the interests of the people. The problem here is that Bill Frist does not actually care about the institution of democracy. He chased his own personal agenda to ban online gambling and disregarded the fair process for this bill because he was met with constant disappointment. The fact that this bill was ALLOWED to be tacked onto port security is completely absurd, and in my opinion should not be legal or constitutional. Our representatives struck down the gambling bill when it was presented in other forms, so the underhanded tactics taken by sentator Bill Frist made a mockery of the US congressional system, and showed that thanks to loopholes in this system, this bill was made into law despite it not being something that our representatives really voted for.

    So what do we do? Keep playing, previous generations in this country drank and gambled when it was illegal. Online gambling isnt even illegal from what i understand, it is simply harder to deposit money. However, we need to be more aware, and we need to push for regulation of online poker as a seperate concept than online gambling in general, and we need to vote for representatives that better represent our interests
  2. slugmatrix slugmatrix is offline

    Posts: 21
    Joined: Nov 05

    Oct 2nd, 2006 (10/2/2006 7:11pm) in reply to alekos

    "I just feel bad for partygaming making such a rash and stupid decision to let go of 70% of their market for no reason."

    You underestimate them. party gaming has a a high priced legal team evaluating this legislation. If they decided to suspend U.S. operations, believe me it was neither rash nor stupid.
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