A Push To End the Online Gambling Ban

Hugh Pickens writes "Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts has introduced legislation that would roll back a ban on Internet gambling enacted when Republicans led Congress. The legislation would allow the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gambling companies that serve American customers. Frank's bill has roughly two dozen co-sponsors and the backing of the The Poker Players Alliance, with over a million members. But opponents are mobilizing to defeat the bill including social conservatives and professional and amateur sports organizations, which say more gambling opportunities could threaten the integrity of their competition. 'Illegal offshore Internet gambling sites are a criminal enterprise, and allowing them to operate unfettered in the United States would present a clear danger to our youth, who are subject to becoming addicted to gambling at an early age,' says Representative Spencer Bachus, Republican of Alabama and the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. Another powerful roadblock could be the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. 'Gaming is an important industry to the state, and anything that affects it will be reviewed carefully,' says Reid's spokesman."

Think of the children?

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

Not that I know of.

I have seen people pay for skyrocketing college tuition with winnings from online poker.

50/50

[owlnation]

I'm torn. Part of me detests censorship and state interference, my belief is that people can make up their own minds as to what's harmful.

On the other hand, since the US Gambling ban the whole World has seen a dramatic reduction in the most obnoxious flashing gif adverts since punch the monkey.

Do I hate censorship or annoying flashing ads more...? Honestly I really don't know...

Re:Think of the children?

[Obfuscant]

it is going to legalize regulated internet gambling.

As someone who remembers the phrase "the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it", I have to ask, exactly what IS "regulated internet gambling", how does one tell it apart from "unregulated", and exactly how do you stop the "unregulated" from taking place?

Excuse me, Mr. Bachus...

[thousandinone]

...and I mean this with the utmost respect, mind you. "Illegal offshore gambling?" What the FUCK are you talking about?

I wasn't aware that gambling sites that operate outside of the United States fell under the US' legal jurisdiction. Is there any kind of law, convention, or agreement (maybe from the UN?) that supports this?

Because otherwise, I see this as an argument FOR legalizing gambling- if there are sites outside of US jurisdiction where it is available, then criminalizing it just cuts off potential tax revenue when the gamblers take their business elsewhere.

Re:Think of the children?

[Jurily]

I know many many kids who's introduction to gambling was playing poker with their buddies for pennies...

I'm like that too. Except I never moved on from the pennies, I realize that in official settings the odds are heavily stacked against me, and do not view gambling as a source of income.

I also have a limit on my losses, and once I hit that, there's nothing short of a gun to my daughter's head that will make me play that night again.

Re:welcome to the age of the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that is what happened. I'm a European playing online poker legally on a number of online sites. Immediately following the ban just about all the US players disappeared; within a few weeks the stronger players started trickling back (I guess these were the ones making money regularly, so they had an incentive to find a way around).

Now these sites are back to at least the level of US players they had before the ban, so I imagine the methods of circumvention have filtered down.

Re:poker is NOT gambling

[tsotha]

This is mostly wrong. As someone who played twenty hours of poker or so every week for a decade, I can tell you none of the points on your list have much effect on your long-term winnings.

1. Nearly everyone picks up enough knowledge of the odds early on. "Is the pot big enough to call this straight draw" kind of things. And most of the close calls probability-wise don't have much effect because they're just that - close calls. If you read the books they tell you things like "In this situation you should call if your opponent is likely to bluff 30% of time." While mathematically true, it's worthless information because you can't peg someone on an exact percentage like that unless it's always or never, particularly if it's someone you've never faced before. What's really going through your head is "this guy bluffs more than most people, so I'll call him more than I would call someone I don't know." You might have a slight advantage if you can calculate exact pot odds, but most pot-odds calculations make assumptions about later-round betting patterns, and in any event that tiny advantage is going to be swamped by the drop.
2. Tells don't make you much because most people don't have reliable tells. Everyone thinks "hey, a really good player will be like that guy in Rounders, knowing what everyone is thinking by the way they hold their cookie." In reality you don't play individual people often enough to pick up on subtle tells, and people with obvious tells don't last long. The one tell I've found to be pretty reliable is when someone checks his hole cards on a single-suit flop, meaning he has an off-suit hand with an ace (or King, maybe) of the right color but he doesn't remember if it's the right suit. Or he might just remember he has an ace. It's reliable enough to make a tiny bit of extra money over time, but not a whole lot. Sometimes he makes his draw, and you'll run across people who do it when they flop the nut flush in order to keep you in the hand.
3. Hiding your own tells is about doing the same thing the same way every hand. It's not difficult at all and isn't going to separate you from the average player. Just resist peeking at those hole cards if you don't remember which ace you had.
4. This is the funny one. Over the long term luck will not make you a winner or a loser in poker, or even affect your rate much. There are enough samples that the laws of probability are an iron-clad bitch. If you're good enough to beat the game you will. If you're not, you won't. Luck may have a large effect your total this session, or this week, or even, if you're running really badly, this year. But the odds will assert themselves, eventually.

Assuming you're not a complete idiot, there are three qualities that separate the winners from the losers:

1. Discipline. Lots of people play poorly even when they know better. This usually manifests as too much calling, because winning hands is fun, and you can't win if you fold. You have to be able to force yourself to play your top game even if you get burned over and over by runner-runner obscenities.
2. Game selection. You don't make money in poker by playing pros, even pros who are a little bit worse than you. You make most of your winnings from people with some kind of tragic poker flaw, people who are capable of losing a lot of money and not getting better. Every serious online player has a buddy list of those kinds of people. Where I live in Northern California there are a couple places you can play for middling stakes. Good players will come in, scan the tables, and immediately leave for another card room if they don't see a good game.
3. Being able to quickly peg your opponents as a certain "type". This is the most important poker skill. The faster you can answer the question "is this the kind of guy who would put in a second bet on a flush draw?", and adjust your play as a result, the better off you are. Poker players try desperately to avoid being a "type", but it's very, very difficult to avoid.

None of the items on my winners list have nothing to do with actually being there in person.

Re:Bad Idea

[stonewallred]

Maybe your mom should have took responsibility for her actions. It is not my problem that she is an addict. By your line of reasoning, we should outlaw cars because some people like to drive fast and wreck and kill people. Or outlaw food, because some people are fat pigs who eat too much and become obese. Your mom's problem is not my problem and her problem should not prevent me from enjoying an activity that I can do responsibly. Plus I find your idea that protecting people from their own stupidity is the government's responsibility to be obtuse, retarded and an affront to my principles of self-reliance and personal responsibility. I don't need your mother's failings to be the base line for how I live my life. She ain't that important.

Re:Wanna Bet?

[Richard_at_work]

Sod websites, most physical bookmakers in the UK will take a generic bet and give you odds themselves. Betting in the UK is not limited to chance or sports, you an literally place a bet on almost anything.

Re:poker is NOT gambling

[Red Flayer]

Would it be to your advantage to play five out of ten hands on one ten-handed table, or to play one hand on five different tables? If you think the former is better you are completely incorrect.

Why would that be incorrect?

The only reason it'd be better to play 5 hands on different tables is that it could be done concurrently (thus averaging higher returns as a function of time).

Removing the time constraint (since you did not mention it), a good poker player would be better off playing the the 5 hands (of 10) at a single table, since each hand played represents an opportunity to gain information about your opponents. If you only play small-stakes poker, then the value of that information is low. But once you begin playing big stakes poker, it's that information that gives you the slight edge to come out a winner in the end -- the value of that information is pretty high.

So, it's not completely incorrect. It's incorrect for a certain style of playing, at certain money levels, against certain competition.

I played small-stakes poker for years online as a hobby/supplemental income, averaging about $80/hr (maximum 6 tables at a time). Now that I have kids, I play infrequently -- but at bigger stakes tables, and I average around $95/hr. The main reason for the switch is the amazing number of bots that play at the lower-stakes tables. I just don't find it as much fun to play against bots, even though once you figure them out, you can abuse them handily (though good ones leave the table after you abuse them 2 or 3 times :)).