Myths about UIGEA from "semi-pro"

[Billman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
That was never the case and recent events show that banks and ACH networks can act voluntarily to implement portions of the UIGEA without waiting for the regs to be published.


[/ QUOTE ]


You think the banks and ACH networks acted "voluntarily"? I'm skeptical.

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on how you want to define voluntary. They were not required to under any sort of law. Did the DOJ make a phone call and ask? I don't know and neither do you so without that knowledge all you can do is go by whether or not they were legally required to do so. The answer is no so that makes it voluntary.

[Skallagrim]

Bill, as someone who plays poker regularly, do you really think 51% of your results were the product of chance? As I stated previously, in the UK Gutshot case the experts were all talking about a ratio of roughly 70-30% skill v. chance (which was apparently good enough under UK law to require regulation).

I also dont want to nitpick about California anymore, that most forms of poker are skill games under that state's law is well accepted by its Courts and the court decision I cited - there are other earlier California court decisions referred to in the case discussed that say this directly. I gave you other state court decisions to read too.

We will never know for certain until there is more litigation - but I will say one last time, showing that the outcome of an average hand of poker is determined by the actions of the players over 51% of the time (and hence not chance) is not going to be that difficult in this day and age, the research is already out there.

[Uglyowl]

This has been one of the best threads I have read in a long time. Obviously Bill and Skallagrim (and others) are very intelligent and it has been interesting reading to say the least. Bill, thanks for playing the part of "chicken little", it was interesting (I mean no disrespect in saying that either). All the chicken littles of the past have not been able to put together coherent arguements, you have been the exception (short of some name calling at the beginning [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]).

I guess "time will tell".

[tsearcher]

[ QUOTE ]


but I will say one last time, showing that the outcome of an average hand of poker is determined by the actions of the players over 51% of the time (and hence not chance) is not going to be that difficult in this day and age, the research is already out there.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a problem I've always had with your new definition of gambling. You're talking about influencing the outcome of an individual hand. Sounds an awful lot like results oriented thinking. Exactly the way unskilled poker players think.

The outcome of a single (or average hand) is probably closer to 95% chance. It's the +E.V. decisions that make poker a skill game. Just like sports betting, horse and dog betting and black jack.

[Skallagrim]

Perhaps I could have phrased it better, but what I am referring to is this: the chance element of poker (the random distribution of the cards) DOES NOT determine who wins the hand over 51% of the time. Betting (and of course bluffing) determines the outcome of most hands (cause there is a lot of folding in poker), and even if there is a showndown to the end, where the cards declare the winner, who is at that showdown has been influenced by the actions of the players, and a skilled player (who hasnt folded because his psychological knowledge and math skills tell him he has the best hand) will be the winner of that showdown more often then not. This is cetainly not the case in Blackjack or Roulette or sports/dog/horse racing.

[Billman]

Well let's just look at it this way, if out of the 10 myths I exposed we're down to haggling about this then the list was at worst 90% accurate. :-)

I think you and I can debate this for another 10 pages but our opinions don't mean much outside this debate and I hate, hate, hate reading case law. Besides, this might be a more interesting debate if you debated Chuck Humphries rather than me because he actually knows what he's talking about and I'm simply quoting him (and others). But I will say that if a gaming law expert like Humphries can construe the law to say that then a state AJ can probably make a similar case. Whether the state's argument holds up in trial is anyone's guess but it's certainly not a slam dunk by either side.

The main point is that the vast majority of crud you read on 2+2 concerning this topic is poorly informed wishful thinking. My post was in response to that. I went through the same thing during the dotcom crash. It was another period in which people refused to see the writing on the wall. Every little scrap of good news was trumpeted and every piece of bad news was either dismissed or attacked.

I see a very similar shakeout happening in online poker. And I see the same kinds of reactions occurring by those who should be looking at the situation with clear, objective eyes. Until people are willing to abandon denial as a method of coping with the situation you're never going to see any real action taken on behalf of poker players.

[Skallagrim]

"Until people are willing to abandon denial as a method of coping with the situation you're never going to see any real action taken on behalf of poker players. "

On this we absolutely agree. Even if my legal analysis is correct, nothing prevents the "nanny-staters" and moralists from passing more/new anti-poker laws. We must fight on all fronts!

[Billman]

One of the things I started doing as a joke is writing in the memo section of all my checks:

For Illegal Internet Wager

[Uglyowl]

[ QUOTE ]
One of the things I started doing as a joke is writing in the memo section of all my checks:

For Illegal Internet Wager

[/ QUOTE ]

haha.. that made me laugh

[puckle]

Skallagrim,

Your feeble attempt at legal analysis in the This is why we lost eCheck and ACH thread left me wondering which jail house law school you got your JD or LLB from. One of Harvard's finest you certainly are not! In that thread you regurgitated a "legal opinion" from the internationally noted jurist AMY CALISTRI!!! (Go on Bill, allow yourself a hearty chuckle). Naturally this and other pearls of great wisdom of yours in that thread were NOT attributed. Equally, there were instances in your posts of embarrassingly clumsy attempts to use legalese that didn't ring true. Now I must confess that I was incensed at your immoral attempts to dress your ignorant opinions with the trappings of legal authority. I spent all of 30 minutes building a case that would expose you as someone with too much time on his hands (i.e. to surf the 'net) and too little legal scholarship to justify his opinions. Then I got distracted and subsequently lost interest.

Imagine the unpleasant surprise that I experienced when I read this thread. It not only contains legal research conducted by a real lawyer that is unattributed, is also contains a grandiose claim by Skallagrim that Skallagrim is an "attorney".

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am aware that there is a preponderance of you who have a tertiary (college) education. I will not, therefore, examine at length the crime of plagiarism. It will suffice to say that it is the most heinous offence in academia. Claiming to to be an "attorney" when one is not admitted to practise is a crime in most first world countries.

Exhibit A.
I refer you to the following paper, "Poker: Public Policy, Law, Mathematics and The Future of an American Tradition" by Anthony Cabot and Robert Hannum. . Please turn to page 13 and inspect footnotes 56 and 57.

Footnote 56 reads,
[ QUOTE ]
56 See, e.g., Harris v. Missouri Gaming Com’n, 869 S.W.2d 58 (Mo. Sup. Ct. 1994). See also, e.g., Bell Gardens Bicycle Club v. Dept. of Justice, 36 Cal.App.4th 717, 741 (2nd Dist. 1995). See also, e.g., Col. Op. Att'y Gen., No. 93-5, 1993 WL 380757 (April 21, 1993). See also, e.g., Ginsberg v. Centennial Turf Club, 251 P.2d 926, 929 (Colo.1952). See also, e.g., State v. Coats, 74 P.2d 1102, 1106 (Or.1938).

[/ QUOTE ]
And from Skallagrim,
[ QUOTE ]
Harris v. Missouri Gaming Com’n, 869 S.W.2d 58 (Mo. Sup. Ct. 1994). Bell Gardens Bicycle Club v. Dept. of Justice, 36 Cal.App.4th 717, 741 (2nd Dist. 1995). Col. Op. Att'y Gen., No. 93-5, 1993 WL 380757 (April 21, 1993). Ginsberg v. Centennial Turf Club, 251 P.2d 926, 929 (Colo.1952). State v. Coats, 74 P.2d 1102, 1106 (Or.1938) and State v. Barnett, 488 P.2d 255 (1971)

[/ QUOTE ]

Removing the words "see", "also", "e.g." and some now redundant commas from Cabot's footnotes produces a version remarkably like that of Skallagrim's, wouldn't you think? Oh and it seems like he found the reference to "State v. Barnett on page 14 at footnote 62. May I direct you to the following features of this list of citations (not "cites"):

1) It is in reverse chronological order,
2) It is not in alphabetical order,
3) It is not in order of importance of the cases,
4) It is not in order of the relevance of the cases,
5) It contains stylistic idiosyncrasies, such as the abbreviation of Commission down to "Com'n" which are not in common usage.

Indeed, it was points 1 and 5 that made my exhaustive search on Google SO MUCH EASIER. I found no other matches for Skallagrim's "work" save for the article by Cabot and Hannum. No other page amongst the several billion on google produces the above sequence of cases. Whilst I lack the specific computer application to test for plagiarism, in essence my methodology is the same one used by my law school when it screens my essays for plagiarism.

Foonote 57 on page 13 reads,
[ QUOTE ]
57 See, e.g., State v. Mathis, 105 S.W. 604, 605-06 (Mo.1907). See also, e.g., Indoor Recreation Enterprises, Inc. v. Douglas, 235 N.W.2d 398, 400-01 (Neb.1975).

[/ QUOTE ]

And from Skallagrim,
[ QUOTE ]
Indoor Recreation Enterprises, Inc. v. Douglas, 235 N.W.2d 398, 400-01 (Neb.1975)

[/ QUOTE ]

From the perspective of an untrained mind, there is no point in doubling the number cases that dispute one's proposition (which chimes in on a criticism of you by Bill in an earlier post on this thread). After all, one has an agenda, doesn't one? If Skallagrim tries to avoid the charge of plagiarism by claiming to be either Cabot or Hannum, I promise you that I will scour the country for these men and ask the for their point of view. ( but let's try a bit of reverse psychology here; if you were Cabot or Hannum, why wouldn't you promote your professional services by referring to "our paper/article"??)

Equally, I challenge Skallagrim to provide a reference to a proprietary legal database that lumps these cases together in the mode examined above.

Exhibit B.
I refer you, as did Bill Rini, to the word "cites". Even Bill, the self proclaimed a##hole who only did a couple of business law subjects caught you out on that one.

THE CORRECT NOUN IS "CITATIONS"

No one who sat through the first hour of their very first class at law school would drop a clanger like that one.

Case closed.

I am offering the following deal to 2+2'ers. If 10 or more of you with 500 or more posts p.m. me with a request to do so, I will write the now dormant riposte to Skallagrim in respect of the "This is why we lost eCheck and ACH" thread and thus allow you the opportunity to reach your own conclusions as to whether or not Skallagrim is a serial plagiarist as well as a poor legal authority.

I am offering a deal to Skallagrim. Never post on 2+2 again. Disappear from whence you came. Tracing you via your i.p. address to your physical location would be a trivial task for the F.B.I.

Claiming that you are an attorney when you are not is a serious offence.
And it is as likely to be so in your country as it is in mine.

Oh, and Skallagrim, don't assume that creating a new 2+2 alias will protect you. You do not have the wit to hide the hallmarks of your deformed little mind.

Regards,
puckle