This CAN Be Done

[Tuff_Fish]

Cross post.

A realist solution even if it is not YOUR solution.


Legislation Forum

Hate and unpleasantness forbidden.

Tuff

[Imtalkingnow]

I interviewed I Nelson Rose, the noted gambling attorney and he mentioned that this is what is going to happen as the byproduct of a loophole in the UIGEA.

The only thing is that the cardroom would only be open to residents of that individual state.

[MicroBob]

I would be curious to read/hear that interview.

We have mentioned before that this does appear to be a way for legalized gambling in the U.S. if the states wanted to pass such measures.

But the residents would not be able to play off-shore sites like Stars or FT. They would be playing Harrahs-California or whatever. And it would only be open to residents of that state.

So in California, if this were passed, then maybe the site would be big enough. Remember that the site would be able to go full-steam ahead with advertising including mentioning that they are the only LEGAL place to play for REAL money in California. So the ads would likely be more effective than the loop-hole ads that PokerStars-dot-NET have to run where they can't even mention that you can win seats at the WSOP and so forth.

I do believe this could possibly happen in the future.

The idea about having to sit in terminals at a land-based location seems a bit weird to me though. But some places might have that too. Set up at horse-tracks and so forth.


The dog-track in West Memphis, AR just got some of those e-poker tables that are electronic cards.
you can't legally play with physical cards at any of the tracks in Arkansas. But they recently approved slots and electronic games at those places. So the electronic-poker tables where 10 people sit at the same table and push buttons instead of handling physical cards and chips is somehow okay there.

Some of the loopholes for what is okay and what isn't are just plain weird. I'm including legal land-based card-rooms in many states but internet-poker is evil.
Internet-gambling on horses and lotteries is okay but betting $10 on the Super Bowl isn't.
Stuff like that.

[cardcounter0]

The only problem when you compare with what the lottery did, was the fact that the lottery has a 50% vig up front.

Give the State a choice with Joe Idiot voter who has $X dollars to "gamble". Do you want Joe to spend it on lottery tickets or play poker? Once you start lumping Poker in with other types of State sponsered high vig gambling - horses, bingo, slots, lottery - giving the suckers a chance to play poker is the last thing you would want.

Unless you think poker with a 50% rake would be a good thing, it is going to take a tremendous amount of education of lawmakers and the vendors are not going to be as helpful.

Look at the battle it took to get lotteries, even with that 50% skim off the top staring them in the face.

[Yakuman]

You don't want "licensed" US-based online poker. You want the roadblocks removed so that we can play the existing sites.

[Pokeraddict]

I live in SD and the lottery has their hands into statewide video poker. They payout 80-92% depending on the game. Not all lottery games have that big a vig but the HA adds up to $222 million lost a year into the machines in a state of less then 750,000 people. That takes me to my other point.

A state this small would likely never be able to pull off a successful poker site. There could be a network of states maybe like other lottery games. Also I am sure Deadwood would fight anything like ths too. They have a hard enough time using 10% of the tables in town some nights.

The B&M interests would fight and IMO it would be unlikely any state would get this to fly between anti gambling nuts and the casino lobby.

[Tuff_Fish]

[ QUOTE ]
I interviewed I Nelson Rose, the noted gambling attorney and he mentioned that this is what is going to happen as the byproduct of a loophole in the UIGEA.

The only thing is that the cardroom would only be open to residents of that individual state.

[/ QUOTE ]






9. 9. GOVERNING LAW
By purchasing a ticket, the player agrees to be bound by and comply with applicable state and federal law, all Lottery regulations and final decisions of the Lottery, and all procedures and instructions established by the Lottery or Director for the conduct of the game.
10. PURCHASE AND PRIZE RESTRICTIONS
a. No ticket shall be sold to, nor shall a prize be paid to, any ineligible person. Ineligible person includes, but is not limited to: 1) any person under the age of 18; 2) any contractor or subcontractor excluded by the terms of its contract from playing California State Lottery games; 3) anyone prohibited by law or regulation from purchasing California State Lottery tickets and/or winning California State Lottery prizes. If an ineligible person makes a claim for a prize, either individually or as part of a group of claimants, the portion of the prize attributable to the ineligible claimant shall be allocated in accordance with applicable law and regulations.



From the lottery regulations.

[Tuff_Fish]

[ QUOTE ]
The only problem when you compare with what the lottery did, was the fact that the lottery has a 50% vig up front.

Give the State a choice with Joe Idiot voter who has $X dollars to "gamble". Do you want Joe to spend it on lottery tickets or play poker? Once you start lumping Poker in with other types of State sponsered high vig gambling - horses, bingo, slots, lottery - giving the suckers a chance to play poker is the last thing you would want.

Unless you think poker with a 50% rake would be a good thing, it is going to take a tremendous amount of education of lawmakers and the vendors are not going to be as helpful.

Look at the battle it took to get lotteries, even with that 50% skim off the top staring them in the face.

[/ QUOTE ]

The rake taken from PokerStars easily equals the lottery contribution to California education this last fiscal year.

They wouldn't want the rake to be excessive. Their best interests would be to keep it modest. Just like now, they are adding lottery prize money to get participation increased.

T

[MicroBob]

I agree some state-wide powerball-type of network would be better.

Whether this is feasible or not is not yet known.

I thought of that several months ago and somebody pointed out that poker is DIRECTLY playing against someone else.
Whereas the powerball is just paying your $1 ticket and if you win the big-one then hooray for you.

I think it could be argued that the Powerball players are technically playing 'against each other' across state-lines in some way.
But poker seems more direct with Tuff in San Diego betting DIRECTLY against me in Memphis.

I don't think it should be considered any different.
But I suspect that the law-makers might think there actually is a difference between one jackpot being held for many states (powerball) vs. 2 players in different states betting and exchanging monies back and forth in poker.


One minor distinction might be able to be made for poker-tournaments. Either SNG's or MTT's seem a little bit closer to the Powerball idea where a bunch of players from different states contribute into one big jackpot.


So I think it might be possible to see a state-wide network for poker tournaments whereas cash-games have to be against players within your own state.


Note, my legal expertise is less-than-zero and I'm pretty much jkust talking out of my ass.
But, then again, that's not really anything new for me so I'm not sure why I felt the need to provide such a disclaimer for this specific post.

[Tuff_Fish]

[ QUOTE ]


The rake taken from PokerStars easily equals the lottery contribution to California education this last fiscal year.

They wouldn't want the rake to be excessive. Their best interests would be to keep it modest. Just like now, they are adding lottery prize money to get participation increased.

T

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops, looks like I missed a decimal point. Using my very conservative numbers, the take seems to be more like $100 million vs $1 Billion.

But I have an incredibly small data base of numbers.

For PokerStars $1/2 $200 buy in.

26 sessions

1571 minutes

2799 hands (6 max)

$2,036 in rake.

Let us assume that these numbers are an average for all limits low to high.

$1.29 a minute per table. Average number of tables running over a 24 hour period = 250 ????

$464,400/day.

One year gross income = $169,506,000.00

Now if we want to get crazy and assume folks from all over the world do come on the site to play..... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

(This of course assumes a California only operation, we don't have to share.)

2500 table average for a 24 hour period = $1.69 Billion.

And if a group of states get together making an even more well know and credible site, and still do not exclude folks from elsewhere it would be a much bigger operation.

If you guys with gazillions of hands at various limits run these numbers, we would get a much better idea.

Just food for thought.

T