We Really Need to Legalize On-Line Poker

One of the rationale against the legalization of on-line poker is the belief that people will become gambling addicts and squander their life savings. It seems like an attempt to legislate morality. What it really is is an attempt to see the future and try to stop a perceived problem which doesn't yet exist in real-life. This is a strange concept. It reminds me of an old Barney Miller episode (Barney Miller was a comedy which aired in the 1970s about a Manhattan police department) where a guy in the holding cell is screaming they have the wrong person behind bars. It seems he was a psychic and he knew the guy he tackled in the middle of the street was going to steal a little old lady's purse so he decided to stop the crime before it took place. The Captain correctly warned him he should not assume he knows what another person will do. I only wish our government had as much common sense as Barney Miller.

This weekend I am home again, having to work on Saturday, and dealing with the after effects of my wife's dog's heart operation which cost me another seven grand I don't have. Since a quick trip to AC is out of the question I'm stuck home having to play on-line which really sucks because of the funds clearing problems we US players have to deal with until Barney Frank gets his legislation passed. I deposited $50 back in June (June 12th to be exact) on my Poker Stars account using eChecks which Poker Stars cleared immediately (which they usually do) and I then proceeded to lose it in about 3 nights so then, after grinding out like $5 in the free rolls (I think Poker Stars has the best free rolls on-line) and blowing that, I deposited another $25 around July 5th and ended up losing that after about a week of play at very low buy-in tables (like $1-$3 with an occasional $11 or $12 buy-in) so I go to make another deposit on July 19th and my account balance is now -$49.69. I look in my email and I have an email dated back July 12 informing me my June 12nd deposit had been declined by my bank (wtf, like a month later?) and they had deducted it from my account; and oh by the way, make sure to deposit $49.69 to cover the negative balance or we'll try to put it through again after 10 business days. Now I'm screwed. My bank accounts dry because of my wife's dog's heart operation. My on-line account is almost $50 in the red (and I'm looking at another bounced check charge in 5 days) and I have no money to buy my way out of it. I play in a bunch of free rolls and get like $2.50 paid back so now I'm only $47 in the red, but at this rate I'll be dead before my account balance is caught up. I need a stake.

Now it just so happens that my two youngest sons are quite good poker players (my older two don't play at all). My youngest and I had actually been sharing our bankrolls recently, so I gave him a call and was informed I had access to $20 of his bankroll on the condition I keep off the low buy-in tables I love so much. We agreed a 10/50 cent no limit cash table was acceptable as long as I sat down with $20 or more so off I went trying to make enough to get my account balance back in the black. Now the 10/50 cent tables have a lot better players than one might think. Since the buy-in range is between $5-$25 its a good idea to keep away from tables with stacks in the $40s and $50s since those players have been sitting there a while and are obviously playing well. I can usually average about $10/hour on these tables, though my son tends to do twice as well. After about 7 hours I have paid off my $50 and added twenty to my sons bankroll. I go to bed happy I can play on my own account again.

Unfortunately it has been a week or two of bad beats at the tables and apparently luck transcends the poker table because when I checked my account balance the next day it was now zero. It seems since one of my checks had pseudo bounced I was now on some sort of probation. My deposits were now subject to a 14 day waiting period so the $25 I had deposited last week was not cleared (even though eChecks sent me a confirmation a couple of days ago) and the additional $5 I had transferred to my account after I paid back the original $50 was evidently tied up in there somewhere, I guess until Poker Stars clears the $25 deposit which according to my account page says July 28th, so back to my son's bankroll I go. After another grueling 7-8 hour session I had my $25 deposit covered (so I assume I will see a deposit of $25 in my account this Wednesday, we will see) paid back and another $40 added to my son's bankroll.

I'm pretty sure the June eChecks check bounce had something to do with the recent problems we US players have had to deal with regarding depositing and cashing out. I have read this was due to some sort of asset freeze initiated by the NY State Attorney General's office but I have not seen any official release from Poker Stars yet though I have heard Full Tilt did notify their account holders that something bad had happened. I do remember following several blog posts and forums since at the time my account balance was zero and I was not allowed to deposit on Poker Stars for almost 2 weeks. While I still don't know what really happened during that blackout period what I do know is I hated being locked out and even worse worrying about what would happen if I ever did really try to cash out more than $10,000-$20,000 on-line. Should I report this pseudo criminal activity to the IRS and pay them or assume it is illegally gotten gains which I do not have to report (kind of like an arms dealer). I just really hate being in a position where I don't know what it means to comply with the law. I do know that the government views on-line poker as illegal, but I don't hear of anybody actually getting arrested for it and its not clear if this also covers free rolls. I know that the weekly bingo games at my local old age home are also considered technically illegal but no one would think the old folks would get arrested so I am in a bit of a quandary.

There is an old saying which goes something like this "do we have bad people in jail because of good laws or good people in jail because of bad laws?". I know that if poker players start getting put in jail because they play on-line it is a case of good people in jail because of bad laws and that's not a good thing. I sure do hope my government handles this properly. Please sign the Poker Player's Alliance petition if you are so inclined and have not already done so. You may find it here. You may find your local Congressman's and Senator's voting record here. Note you may also find their contact information on this site as well.

My friend who wants to play on-line but for now limits himself to free rolls for exactly this problem knows a squeeze play when he sees one. The basic problem as he sees it is the Senators are in a bind. They get a lot of contributions from their local gambling establishments. They may not get the same from Poker Stars being an entity currently registered to the Isle of Man so they vote with their wallets. They will continue to do so until our collective little wallets make as much noise as their large gambling establishments wallets do. I guess the government doesn't mind gambling as long as they are the house. In this case the house knows how to tax physical revenues. They are not quite as astute at taxing virtual revenue yet. Hopefully they will wise up and realize there is more potential in virtual gambling tax revenue if handled properly.