What happened to the July 2007 deadline?

[Petomane]

Obviously online poker, a multi billion industry won’t disappear from America for long. It is quite appalling that conglomerates can pay off congress to get rid of successful business rivals and claim their turf. Protectionism, international piracy, thuggery, call it what you will, this is a very ominous development for the entire Internet. What successful independent online business is safe now?

I think this is an issue of the freedom of the Internet and not gambling at all. What somebody does with their money, on their time on the Internet is nobody's business, whether it's poker or babes shagging donkeys. As long as we're not doing harm, we can fritter away our money however we please. If we're lucky enough to win some, well, it used to go through American banking institutions and we HAD to pay taxes. Now we're driven underground.

Does online poker even fall under the jurisdiction of American gaming commissions? It's the cyberspace. And the gaming rules change in every state of the union. But this is cyberspace. Nobody owns cyberspace...yet. So why are American lawmakers passing judgment on online poker? It ain't theirs to regulate. Worse depravity than poker is all over Internet - are they planning to start regulating the entire Internet and telling people what they can't do?

Now what about E-Bay and all those transactions? Whose jurisdiction is that? The commerce department? Some people make a living trading on E-Bay - how soon before the feds step in and close that "racket". And more people get ripped off on E-Bay than they ever did by any poker site.

Sometime this year we’ll see “licensed” poker sites. Licensed by whom? The American government? What right has the American government to regulate anything online, provided it’s doing no harm? Now what if the Brazilian government decides that straights beat flushes? And Iceland decides that bad beat jackpots are illegal? The beauty of the Internet is that no one owns it.

As it so happens, online poker is doing just fine self-regulating. If there ever was anything slightly shady, 23 million of us wouldn't be playing it. In my four years, I've never had a single goddamn problem with cashouts. If a site sucks, nobody uses it. In fact, Neteller was more efficient than any American bank - is that why they got arrested? The leading poker sites keep improving their software and their games. In countries outside of the U.S. these are members of the stock exchange. If they're being made accountable over in England, shouldn't that be enough?

But poker isn't banned, American financial institutions are banned from dealing with only certain online gambling sites, but not others. Given the worldwide popularity of online gambling, shouldn't Bank of America be a little upset too? Or will Harrah's "regulated" poker sites will soon be up and running? I mean, they're already testing the software inside their casinos.

The UIGEA is a blatant grab by the American government to privatize the Internet and hand it over to big business. Naughty gambling is a good test case, because upstanding citizens don’t care. What’s next? Regulating online blogs? You can still charge hookers on your MasterCard, but not poker.

And why on earth did we bother to vote? The Democrats came in and snuffed our beloved pastime in no time at all. What happened to the July 2007 deadline?

Apparently 23 million Americans played online poker. Call your congresspeople and they’ll give it back to us, regulated, licensed, sanitized and handed over to big business lock, stock and barrel.