BILL that could end ONLINE POKER...

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It will still be as easy to play online poker as it is to cross the Southern Border illegally. but it will probably have an effect on the casual users = not as many fish.

[bkholdem]

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Until I read the Slate article about that self-proclaimed "professional poker player" who gambled away his entire bankroll and then went through nearly all of the family's untouchable rainy day reserves, I would have been 100% dead set against this bill - couldn't see the other side. Now, I must admit that I find myself thinking about the damage that is done to families by problem gamblers. I'm no longer so sure that my position is as well-founded as I once believed it to be.

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How do you feel about the addicted shopper that spends all of the families "untouchable rainy day reserves" on clothes bought on the internet. Or people that unknown to their spouses apply for and recieve $1000's of dollars in credit cards and max them out on meaningless/useless purchases that run the family into financial ruin. Or.....the list goes on and on.

People with these problems need help, but even if the government were capable of helping them (which I don't believe it is), it's not the governments place to do so. Stupid people can not be protected from themselves, and unfortunately it's up to the families to protect themselves. In other words, some people make bad choices, are idiots, or are just plain sick. It's not my job, your job (unless you are a therapist or something similar) or the governments job to fix them. To restrict our civil liberties in order to protect these broken people would be a terrible and dangerous precedent to set. It would be similar to saying, "That guy over there is mentally ill, so everyone has to live in an asylum."

Rant over

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This is a great point. It is perfectly OK to be against something but it is also very important to recognize that the government can not prevent people from harming themselves. And it their efforts to do so they collect millions of tax dollars and continue to come up with new ways to prevent people from harming themselves. Recognizing this is a vicious cycle that hurts everyone except the govt employees who get a nice check and sweet benefits from playing what is essencially 'a game' ('trying' to prevent the unpreventable-people harming themselves). We, the citizens, loose.

You can not legislate away bad judgement or mistakes or imperfect life choices.

Animals live and die and suffer. So do humans. We can learn something from the animals as they don't 'make a problem' out of it.

[Piers]

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BILL that could end ONLINE POKER...

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If all Americans stopped playing online, would the games get tougher or softer?