[cmattos]

[ QUOTE ]
what everyone here seems to miss is this:

the sites that would benefit the most from online poker legalization in the US would NOT be Harrahs, MGM, Bellagio, et al.

the best positioned companies would be google, myspace and AOL - sites that already get billions of traffic hits that they could easily translate into their new rooms.

Traffic leads to downloads, which leads to players, which leads to critical mass.

Harrahs et al could spend untold millions and still not get the traffic that the other sites already get - and these sites would not have to pay ANYTHING for this traffic.

money is not the problem in creating a room (see Mansion) - it is website traffic.

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Unless, of course, having an online casino is dependent on having a license for a land-based casino. Assuming for a moment the conspiracy presented by the OP is true, this is certainly a provision that will have been accounted for.