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Actually, I’m posting this in response to an IM session with a buddy (who I shall allow to remain nameless). He said he wanted to open an online casino. I told him it’s a great idea if you never want to set foot in the US again. Obviously, he was confused because he tried to use logic to sort out the gambling laws in this country. Funny enough, occassional reader McGrupp (Pauly) from the Tao of Poker had a post about the legality of online gambling. His post links to a couple of pieces written by the Poker Prof. concerning the subject.
The first article is a pure legal discussion of online poker. It’s an interesting read but it strays off into a call for people to rise up against the powers that be which I don’t think will be effective as long as the casinos and other people who have an interest in keeping online gambling illegal can outspend us regular players buying up politicians.
His second article is actually quite funny. The Poker Prof. asks whether or not 2004 WSOP Champion Greg Raymer should be jailed. He won his entry into the event via an online satellite tournament. In other words, not only was he engaged in an illegal activity but he’s on national television directly as a result. The FBI should have no problem tracking him down and since it would be pretty easy to prove how he came to enter the WSOP tournament . . . he should go to jail.
So in answer to my friend, this is the crazy legal mess online gambling is. Americans citizens operating online casinos in Costa Rica and other countries where online gambling is actually legal are scared to step foot on US soil. Some of thier fellow casino moguls have been nabbed at the airport and taken to jail and with the recent tendency to label everything a possible violation of the PATRIOT Act where the blinds double every 15 minutes, nobody wants to go all-in with 72o when Uncle Sam has just re-raised the pot.
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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Thanks for the shout out, Bill!
Nevermind the legality of it: How would this person expect to compete against the well-established poker rooms out there like Stars and Party? Who’s even left to endorse the site, when all the big names are either running their own site or have contracts with one or the other?