[justaPlayer]

Hello all, Engineer, Skallagrim, etc., denizens of the Legislation Forum. I rarely comment, mainly because I am not a corporate professional nor a lawyer, but I read this forum often to keep up to date on this very important issue.

I have to say, I disagree with the negativity expressed by Dead Money Dad on this development of the Las Vegas majors expressing interest in buying Party. I see this as an encouraging sign that something behind the scenes is taking place not to SNUFF OUT online poker, but to more or less OWN IT from the United States. I think (and I'm sure most of my fellow cynics here on this forum would agree) that people in power universally, and particularly those who trumpet "values," "morality," etc. the loudest are in actuality the most venal. The money that was made from online poker from 2003 to 2006 has to be a staggering figure. I don't have any hard numbers, maybe somebody else does, but it would not surprise me if Pokerstars continues to make >$5million a day even now. At least a million. Multiply that by 10 spread across the major sites at the height of the boom, and it just doesn't make sense that the powers that be are doing this just because they don't like it on the basis of "morality." No, they want those revenues for themselves, in their jurisdiction. Things are beginning to make sense to me now. I think the regs were vague deliberately, and did not mention poker deliberately. At any rate, with legions of devoted players and professionals who are more or less unemployable elsewhere (such as myself), it's not going anywhere no matter what laws get passed. I have already contemplated moving abroad and I'm sure many other players have too. No trill playa gonna let em just take away his living. That's all. But they don't wanna take it away. They wanna OWN IT. And they will.