Not good, Online Gambling bill to be attached to defense bill?-article

WSEX GM · #1 09-13-2006, 09:22 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14824615/

jfk · #2 09-13-2006, 09:56 PM

...let's hope this all stalls out before the session expires.

Uglyowl · #3 09-13-2006, 10:02 PM

Politics is slimy! What a dick. Try passing the measure on it's own merits, not trying to sneak it through moran.

Congrats on converting me from Republican to Democrat by the way.

Skipbidder · #4 09-13-2006, 10:34 PM

Happy to have you switch from R to D if you happen to be voting...however, this is standard operating procedure. If the dems manage to win back the house while I'm still alive, they'll be doing exactly the same thing.

driverseati · #5 09-13-2006, 10:37 PM

Isn't it against senate rules to do that?

repulse · #6 09-13-2006, 10:38 PM

Well this is some absurd degree of sickening politics. But does this even matter? The article only mentions prohibiting people from using credit cards to "settle Internet gambling debts". If this is the case, obviously Neteller remains fine and we only lose casual players who were currently able to fund with their credit card before this move. I'm sure the article's summary could just be lacking in details, though.

I always laugh when I hear about "settling Internet gambling debts". Is it even possible to take on any Internet gambling debt? Do the supporters of these prohibition efforts somehow think that players are able to make bets with assets not in their poker/casino accounts at the time of the bet?

It'd be funny if this passed this way and was then discovered to do absolutely nothing.

Jurollo · #7 09-13-2006, 10:40 PM

Once you lose casual players the whole market collapses, poker is built on a snowball effect. Once casual players are gone breakeven players start losing, and then small winners start losing after BE players, casual players set the market.

repulse · #8 09-13-2006, 11:03 PM

Yeah, for sure, but stopping credit cards is a lot different than making the act of gambling illegal. How many people's credit cards actually ever worked for online poker transactions? Mine never did. I understand that it's the decision of the individual banks as to whether or not to currently allow the transactions or not.

Any estimates as to what percentage of casual players already have been forced to find funding methods separate from credit cards?

MicroBob · #9 09-13-2006, 11:08 PM

Exactly.

Some of the online-gambling legislation pretty much just seeks to prohibit CC's from allowing transactions to online-gambling sites...which most CC companies are doing on their own already.

xmbs · #10 09-13-2006, 11:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Once you lose casual players the whole market collapses, poker is built on a snowball effect. Once casual players are gone breakeven players start losing, and then small winners start losing after BE players, casual players set the market.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's important for the sites as well as the players though, should all the lobbying efforts fail and something like this does pass surely the sites will respond with greatly increased marketing etc to casual players in Europe and elsewhere. There's got to be a huge ammount of potential growth outside the US I would have thought.