I saw that Ed Miller did a recent post about how the illegality of poker has made it that much more dangerous. It was interesting because I was going to pen my own response to it and then saw that my good amigo, F-Train had offered his own response. I usually agree with F-Train on a lot of topics but this is one where I think our opinions differ slightly.
F-Train, being the legal guru he is, explains the legal/political hurdles necessary to make poker legal in NYC. Since gambling is banned by the state constitution it’s a rather involved and politically challenging task. While one can’t disagree that some fairly ugly things await anybody pushing for legal poker in NY, the part I disagree with F-Train on is that just because something is difficult doesn’t mean that it’s right.
I’m sure someone could have laid out the legal mountain to climb for anyone wishing to repeal prohibition but it is obvious that prohibition created an environment that fostered mass disregard for the law and was a breeding ground for organized crime.
The same is happening in NY and other areas around the US. By pushing the game into the underground you are simply inviting people to break the law and guaranteeing that those wishing to prey on these underground clubs can do so with very little risk. If anything, the police are now inviting the mob to get involved and serve a function the police can’t; protection.
As Ed points out, with the frequency that the police conduct their little raids it forces these establishments to be pretty mobile. It doesn’t make sense to invest in the security apparatus necessary to deter gun toting thieves. And since the rooms can’t rely on police, relatively honest citizens looking for a little poker action are subjected to undue risk from those wishing to take advantage of this constitutionally created danger.
I agree with Ed, if NY is serious about stopping gambling then lock up A-Rod for six months. Let’s start putting doctors and lawyers behind bars for enjoying a little poker game with the guys. Because it’s pointless to declare something illegal and then incentivize people to break the law by not enforcing it strictly on either the supply or demand side of the equation. The police crack down on the underground clubs but give wrist slaps to the players. That guarantees healthy demand much in the same way that anti-solicitation laws that only punish the prostitutes and not the John’s does nothing to curb prostitution. Or in the same way that the UIGEA criminalizes the suppliers of online poker but does nothing whatsoever to stem the demand.
Of course, no politician or prosecutor in his right mind would actually go after A-Rod or respectable citizens for engaging in some underground poker because it would be political suicide. But that doesn’t make the current situation any less hypocritical or dangerous.
Groups like Focus on the Family are good at shaping these sorts of issues to fit their needs and the poker playing community needs to do so as well. Instead of framing this as an issue of being able to play poker we need to show how hypocritical laws actually put lives in danger. The shooting death of a mathematician and former professor while playing a simple game of poker should be branded a failure of the law the same way the rise of organized crime was blamed on prohibition. Because the legal system then has only one of two choices; they can either crack down on both the rooms and the players (which is politically uncomfortable) or look at making changes that protect poker players by adopting the law to allow it.
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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.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“I agree with Ed, if NY is serious about stopping gambling then lock up A-Rod for six months. ”
My understanding is that it is legal to play just not legal to rake or charge time in NY. Thus there is no incentive to not play as by playing you are not running afoul of the law.
-Chilly
Hey Chilly,
Good point but I think the aim of that is the same as the aim of not targeting players in the UIGEA. If they supply a game with no rake or time charge the only games are going to be home games. They’re directly attempting to take away the commercial incentive to offer games.
The point is, if the state feels the game so evil as to prevent any commercial enterprise from offering it in a safe, regulated, and secure environment then why create the loopholes for the players but not the card rooms?
Bill