My Rant on the US Poker Ban

[liladypokerpro]

Well it has come to pass that the US Government is finally getting what they want. Many poker rooms are now banning IP addresses of Americans from certain states because of tension between the states' legislation and the federal government as whether or not to pass their own "tweaked" versions of the UIGEA bill. More than 141 poker rooms and networks are jumping on the "ban-wagon" and blocking new sign ups and other transactions from American residents in these shaky states. As of yet, current users of these poker rooms have not yet been affected, but it's only a matter of time.

As a result of this fear, many poker rooms are seeing record levels of players in seemingly doomed states withdrawing all of their funds from the sites. This is due to the fact that if/when these bans are passed into law, all affected player funds will be frozen and locked, with no way to deposit, withdraw or even transfer to another player for withdrawl.

I think the US (as usual) has got the solution all wrong here. The main reason why the US Gov't is so strongly against online poker is NOT because of their "values" as they'd like you to believe. It all centers around taxation of the American people. The US Gov't banned online poker sites from making a home base in the US, so the poker rooms moved overseas - Mistake #1. Had the US Gov't kept the poker rooms on US soil, they could have easily tracked US players' incomes and taxed their winnings. Now, there is NO way for the US to track or tax online poker players, which pissed the US Gov't off, because they can't stand to think that there is any fraction of our lives that they cannot control.

Take into consideration that the US is home to "Sin City" - gambling capital of the world; Reno - a smaller, more compact version of Las Vegas; Atlantic City - the southern gambling center, and hundreds upon hundreds more casinos and gambling centers scattered all throughout the nation. Not to leave out that many states implement their own form of lottery, whether it be Powerball or scratch off tickets.

So, according to the US Gov't, they are "concerned about Americans and gambling addicton..." I call Bullshit on that statement. They make multi-billion dollars off of Americans and their "addictions" every year...whether it be gambling, smoking, drinking...whatever. Casinos and Tobacco sales bring in more combined revenue than the oil industry in any given year. The US Gov't is NOT concerned about addiction...they are ONLY concerned about their own wallets, and their constant need for total control of the American people. And THAT is the bottom line.

[HeyKidMove]

Well said. I think it's pretty obvious as you said, that the government just wants to be able to tax any way that people can make money. And since they can't they make up some reason for people to not be able to play online poker. Even in their reason is true, it's not their place to protect me from playing poker online. I can spend my money however I please.

[AlwaysBroke]

the government just wants to control and monitor people's income even when it's online poker, the gov. banned online poker because of casinos interests ( i think) , because online gambling steal casinos' profits, they say to it's to help gamblers addictions lol
the gov. always say good positive things on what they are doing, they never tell the truth because it's all about money

[GainerRakeback]

lilady, since you're from KY (current ground zero for poker battle), are you locked out of any sites yet?

[liladypokerpro]

Not as of yet *knocks on wood*

[infinii]

Thank god you people live in a free democratic country and not some god forsaken communist country or one ruled by dictators or with poor human rights.

United States of America, land of the FREE!!!!


On a more serious note, did you guys know Bush is trying to pass more legislation to ban online poker (much like the way he did it with UIGEA...by sneaking it in) amongst other things in the last minutes of his rule?

Obama has stated that he's likely to overturn by executive decision some of Bush's policies but with your country in the middle of war and world economic turmoil, I can't see how online poker is going to be anywhere close to the top of Obama's priorities.