[Nortonesque]

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I think something like this would make for a good start. Basically a peer-to-peer play-money system where it can be verified that nobody is cheating could be used to get the ball rolling and then if that was proven to work properly a real-money version could be thought about.

I'll have to read some of Ray Bonnert's old "Honest Holdem" posts - I just assumed they were spam, but it sounds like their might actually be some interesting stuff within them. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I'm looking into some of the p2p frameworks (currently JXTA) with the goal of creating a p2p poker system.

I think the key, rather than worrying about play money and real money, is to disassociate the system from actual payment. So some third party may be exchanging money based on the outcome of a game, but the system knows nothing about it. Then any payment systems (legal, hopefully) will come about organically on what should be a pretty level playing field.