Anyone heard anything: "What no one is saying about internet poker"

[phydaux]

bernie,

Do dishonest people exist. Of course they do. I'm not denying the existence of dishonest people. I acknowledge that fact.

However, do on-line casinos have a huge incentive to run an honest business, and a huge disincentive to run a dishonest business? Yes, and I don't see you acknowledging that fact.

The point I am trying to make is that the casino's incentive to run an honest business and their disincentive to run a dishonest business together will overcome all the the most greedy or most stupid corporate executive's desire to run their company dishonestly for higher short term gain. In fact, you have to be both very greedy and very stupid to run a publicly traded business that way.

Did Enron's corporate officers loot the company for their own personal gain? Yes. Those men are now in disgrace, and will never serve as a corporate officer in a publicly traded corporation ever again. All their education, years of experience and hard work are pissedaway and they will never be trusted with other people's money ever again.

Also, their company is in disgrace. No one will ever trust Enron or invest their money with that company again. It is in ruins, unable to make a profit. And because Enron was publicly traded, the corporate officers are both criminally and civilly libel.

You can hold up Enron and perhaps 3-4 other Fortune 100 companies as anecdotal evidence of corporate greed and malfeasence. This is the fallacy of anecdotal evidence - It ignores the other 95% of well-run, profitable Fortune 100 compaines.

Enron and it's officers serve as a cautionary tale to all the greedy capitalist corporate officers in the other companies, reminding them that there is more long term profit available for everyone if they just run the company honestly.

You point to examples of corruption in B&M casinos as evidence of likely corruption at on-line casinos. This is not a like-to-like comparison. In a B&M casino you have possible collusion with dealers, players marking cards and other practices that are just not possible in an on-line casino.

Yes, in days past casinos skimmed the profits and turned them over to disreputable figures. Recall that in those days many if not most casinos were family owned. Binion's Casino was owned by the Binion's family. And in family ownership, or any private ownership, you are able to play things much closer to the vest, and that is a breading ground for corruption.

Most casinos today, B&M or on-line, are corporate-owned. Remember, those corporations are run by greedy capitalist corporate officers. Those greedy capitalist corporate officers crave oversight and regulation because oversight and regulation helps eliminate corruption. And corruption is harmful to long-term profits.

REMEMBER - Greedy capitalist corporate officers! It's always all about the PROFIT!!! Always! And there is ALWAYS more long term profit in an honest, well run company.

It's their greed that keeps them honest. That's why Ayn Rand said "Greed is a virtue."