CNN Article putting Poker in a more positive light, highlighting skill

[Skallagrim]

OB-Wan, if you are going to become a useful poster here on 2+2 you are, as TheEngineer said, going to have to establish credibility first.

You establish very little credibility by taking one of the single most useful arguments we have in the fight to get online poker expressly legal and trashing it because in your mind you have discovered the great observation all the rest of us missed: legislators can change laws. Duh....

You dont show any evidence that they are working to change these skill v. chance laws now; nor do you show any evidence that they will rise up and change those laws if we win in the courts.

It is apparent that you came in here, and if you are not a shill, briefly looked around without any real research and decided that you know better than the folks who have worked on these issues for well over a year how to get to our goal. If you are offended by my tone to you, so be it - you deserved it.

Perhaps you might want to realize that the only reason you are still capable of playing online poker at the moment (if, in fact, you do) is because the FBI and the DOJ recognize the "poker is skill" argument as real challenge to them in court. That is the reason ALL their prosecutions so far have been against sportsbetting sites.

And, of course, other than objecting to my putting un-named foul words in your mouth (just like a Friend Of the Family member would) you really have no clue that the Skill Games Protection Act is our best hope right now. Its called the SKILL games protection act for a reason.

Skallagrim

[Skallagrim]

And, since I didnt say it above, nowhere have I or anyone else said that the skill argument should be our only argument. Nor is it the case that pushing the skill argument detracts from our other efforts at getting legislation in our favor, it is PART of that effort. It is one part of the arsenal. And we need to use ALL our weapons.

Skallagrim

[OB-Wan222]

I fear that we are getting far away from the OP about the CNN story, but following the train of thought...

JPFisher55 "...if we win the legal battle over the WTO... If we win the legal battle over the constitutionality of the UIGEA and/or the right to play online poker in our homes..."

The International pro-gaming forces have already won the UIGEA/WTO dispute. And it does not involve skill vs. luck, it involves wired transmission of wagers. It boils down to rather the International community will impose sanctions that the US cannot live with. Right now the Administration is using its favorite tactic - defining things the way it wants to regardless of reality (shades of 1984!) - to postpone the consequences of its unilateral action. But it is not and never was an argument based on skill vs. luck.

The major Constitutional argument against the UIGEA is that it is vague to the point of being unenforceable. Again Congress can address that with a more detailed attempt to define "illegal internet gambling", but again we end up in the legislativive areana, not the courts.

The major point being - there is no Constitutional right to games of skill or luck - or games at all. And when we discuss the Constitution and its interpretation by The Court (not lower case, the courts) let's not forget that we almost have a Scalia Court and Scalia is not someone that to whom I would trust my personal privacy, since he doesn't believe in any such thing.

JPFisher55 "Heck, right now, Congress cannot pass all the budget bills. And the UIGEA was only passed by attaching it to a very important national security bill concerning our ports."

I agree that in general gambling is a very low priority, but it seems that politicians can still find time to get their jabs in. And here we are again discussing legislations, i.e. politicians, not judges.

Courts have their place but we shouldn't take our eye off the ball. Drawing room debates about skill vs. luck are fun but that's all they are. Who ever won that debate about how many Angels could dance on the head of a pin? No one remembers because they weren't important to the REAL debate.

If you believe that people should be allowed to gamble in the privacy of their homes then it doesn't matter if its poker or slots or horseracing or bingo or a chess game. Just as if you believe in people being able to drink in the privacy of their homes it doesn't matter if its beer or brandy or wine or scotch.

No seriously what's the FOF?

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
A simple point: virtually no one wants to ban playing any and every game for money; a fair number of folks, however, want to ban gambling. In many places the political compromise is to ban playing for money those games that are games of chance but allow playing for money those games that are games of skill.

[/ QUOTE ]

When you add in the "locational" control as evidenced by B&M's staying out of the on-line issue on a Federal Level but doing all they can to fight each battle on the State Level you begin to understand the full force of Skall's premise.

Their rational seems to be a total ban keeps the issue a State by State political battle, removes the WTO issue with a total ban, an provides the "only" outlet for poker players to continue to play poker. This puts "us" in their corner politically and they don't have to do a thing but "assist" the banking industry (which is represented on their board) in furthering the Fear on-line Fun (FoF) cause.


[ QUOTE ]
I see little chance of overcoming that political compromise in most states, and hence the key for poker is, again, to establish it as game of skill.

Do I wish the only issue up for debate was personal freedom? Yes. But it isnt, and it isnt likely to be in the current political climate.

Skallagrim

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly! Given Valarie A Bend's refusal to answer the timing issue at all, is further evidence that almost all Federal efforts to date are delaying tatics at best. Only a few see the UIGEA as a sucess in furthering the total ban on remote gaming (and fun!).

If you want quicker and cheaper poker in the near term the only possible action is to make the banking indusrty tell the DOJ and the Federal Reserve Board to tell Congress that the UIGEA is unenforcable as written. Even that is likely a year away given the regualtory "time frame" within the proposed regualtion document.

Unless we indend to await a legal challenge of an implemented UIGEA regualtion which itself would be many years in resolving there is no other short term "solution" that I can forsee.


D$D

[Skallagrim]

The point is, OB, we on these boards have been over this numerous times. Do some searching. When the Libertarian party has control over one of the houses of congress then maybe we can succeed on the personal freedom issue alone.

You dont realize that its you wanting to put all our eggs into one questionable basket, do you?

And in case you didnt get it from my last post, FOF is Focus on the Family, the main "gambling is evil, addictive, ruinous, did i say evil?" group. Please do some homework before telling us we are going about this all wrong.

Skallagrim

[OB-Wan222]

Skallagrim "OB-Wan, if you are going to become a useful poster here on 2+2 you are, as TheEngineer said, going to have to establish credibility first."

I'm not the least bit interested in gaining credibility in your eyes. Especially considering that you take your first three paragraphs to attack me personally (again) before you even begin to posit competing opinions. You and TheEngineer seem more interested in evaluating the person instead of the ideas.

Next time can we get to the debate over ideas first?

BTW, You are not the gatekeeper of ideas. I am free to have my opinions evaluated on their merit as are you. If you disagree with my ideas then fine, but none of you have the right to decide if I'm entitled to have an opinion.

If you don't believe me then ask the mods. I'm guessing you're not one of those, are you? But don't worry, I'm not going to use that as an argument against you. After all, you don't have to be a mod to have an opinion, do you?

Skallagrim "Perhaps you might want to realize that the only reason you are still capable of playing online poker at the moment (if, in fact, you do) is because the FBI and the DOJ recognize the "poker is skill" argument as real challenge to them in court. That is the reason ALL their prosecutions so far have been against sportsbetting sites."

Not at all. After all, people break the law all the time without consequence (or so I'm told). People drive drunk, use drugs, rob banks and, yes, even gamble on-line without being prosecuted. It's not that the authorities don't think people are breaking the law, its just that they don't have the resources to stop everyone breaking the law.

From today's testimony before the House Committee by the DOJ rep: "The Department’s view for some time has been that all forms of Internet gambling, including sports wagering, casino games, and card games, are illegal under federal law... "

And yet, despite that opinion those of us who gamble online are not in jail. So the "you are capable of gambling because poker is skill" argument is not convincing. The DOJ considers online poker illegal despite all your skill vs. luck arguments.

Skallagrim "...you really have no clue that the Skill Games Protection Act is our best hope right now. Its called the SKILL games protection act for a reason."

And the world goes around in a circle. You mean that a legislative act is our best hope? Not the courts? Are you sure? Because that sounds an awful lot like what I have been saying all along.

It matters not rather the pols call it skills or manna from heaven act. As I have said politicians don't care about reality - if it suits them to call it a skill they will, if it doesn't then they will deny its a skill no matter what evidence you present. You can scream until the mountains fall and the rivers rise - nothing but political muscle with change the legal landscape.

If pols will pass a law under the fig leaf of calling it a skill then fine, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that's why they act. Again (and again) all kinds of games of luck - lottery, bingo, wheels, etc - are legal for some reasons (usually state lotteries or charity games) so it is illogical to think that skill vs. luck is the deciding factor.

Don't forget I am on your side, I just think that political change is more useful than arguing among ourselves (I never spoke against arguing in court in the near term) about skill vs. luck is a a waste of time.

[adanthar]

There is nothing stopping any interested party from pressing both prongs of attack. In fact, that is likely the best option, the difference being the playing field.

Trying to wedge a distinction between luck and skill on the federal level is an interesting challenge but one that is ultimately futile, because it will never pass. The main reason for this is that we are only as far along as we are because the WTO issue is pressing our case for us; if we remove the WTO from the equation, legalization before January, 2009 is utterly impossible. Therefore, since the WTO argument ignores luck vs. skill entirely, there's no point rehashing it on the federal level.

On the other hand, *if* the WTO argument wins and online gambling is "legalized", the likely result is that many states, forced to allow access to everyone on equal terms but probably retaining the right to ban whatever categories of gambling they see fit to, will start by banning all non-lottery games of chance. This is where the skill game argument comes in and can be used effectively. In addition, it should also be argued right now in states where chance vs. skill is already the deciding factor.

However, trying to get a skill game exemption federally *right now* is thoroughly pointless. The first Congressman to point out that this gets the US nowhere re: the WTO will win an FOF-branded cookie and that'll be the end of that. I think OB-Wan is entirely correct on this one.

[BluffTHIS!]

OB-Wan,

3 Questions:

1) Is your opposition to discussing and using the skill argument rooted in a desire to see poker lumped in with -EV casino gambling?

2) Do you derive income, other than purely as a player, from an online gambling enterprise, which includes affiliates?

3) If your posting account's IP address were run for matches against other older accounts, which such account(s) would it match?

[Skallagrim]

Adanthar, you seem to ignore that with the sign-on of Chairman Conyers, it is precisely the skill games argument that IS gaining ground in Congress. Where in this argument is the Sports Bettors Alliance? The Slot Players Alliance?

Also, you seem to place all our hopes on the WTO. What if the WTO sanctions and compensation are not that big. The Bush Admin has already indicated it plans to give up a bit to keep the online status quo. If the "bit" is small enough to not make big noise, where do we go?

Also, because its anathema to their way of thinking, the "skill games v. gambling" distinction was not put before the WTO by the Bush Admin. It is perfectly acceptable for the US, under the WTO, to ban all online gambling, but openly allow online skill games (so long as foreign sites are not discriminated against). How one fairly separates the two then becomes a new round of WTO litigation, and a new opportunity for negotiation and compromise. The first congresperson to point this out wins a much bigger cookie from all the industries possibly affected by sanctions.

To say OBWan is right that the skill argument is useless at the federal level ignores the progress the Wexler bill has made, assumes the WTO will force congress to make all online gambling legal thus leaving us no fall back position if it doesnt, and fails to recognize the usefulness of the distinction at the WTO itself. Do you really want us to be in a position where we must agree that the only way to have legal online poker is to also have legal online slots and sportsbetting?

And thats the same question to you OBWan; stop feeling bad about the attacks I made ON YOUR STATEMENTS. Other than suspecting you might be a shill for FOF (you wouldnt be the first if so) I attacked the postion you staked out. I still attack it. To give up on maintaining that poker is different because its a skill game is too give up way too much and only plays into the hands of our enemies who have realized that criminalizing online poker (as opposed to other "gambling") is the weakest point of their argument. They would love nothing more than for us to agree that poker should be treated the same as online slots.

Skallagrim

[OB-Wan222]

Before I go on (and on and on) I would like to thank soulvamp and adanthar the "Possibly Too Level Headed" [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] for their words of support.

Now BluffTHIS! since you asked me nicely, without accusations of being a plant or someone's puppet, I will gladly respond--

1) Is your opposition to discussing and using the skill argument rooted in a desire to see poker lumped in with -EV casino gambling?

Not at all. I honestly think that it's a smokescreen. That it's a sham invented by politicians to justify their opposition or support based solely on political favor. I've had this idea for years, but every time I try to express it I get attacked from a variety o circles.

Let me tell you a real story about American politics - I remember when the original Geo. Bush made his "no new taxes" pledge. The thing that astounded everyone with a clue was not that years later he went back on that promise. For those that were politically aware the real betrayal was that AS SOON AS HE SAID IT EVERYONE WITH A CLUE KNEW IT WAS A LIE. We were stunned that he would have the nerve to make such a worthless promise, but it wasn't until the die was finally cast that the American people were surprised to learn that he had "gone back on his word." His word was worthless from the moment it was uttered, but not enough people could separate the hard truth from what they wanted to believe. And that is what politics in America is REALLY like.

Once you've been through the ringer a few decades you realize that politicians will say whatever they think will go down good and then do whatever they think they have to and that makes skill vs. luck a worthless exercise without the political power to back it up.

2) Do you derive income, other than purely as a player, from an online gambling enterprise, which includes affiliates?

Not a bit. My username is OB-Wan222. That is the name I use on FTP, PS, AP, UB, FTP forum and here. If you look me up on SharkScope you will probably find a fish by my name. I wish I were a better player but I don't give up hope.

But I don't believe that my ability to win money or my time playing poker online (a few months) or my age (older than the average bear) has anything to do with whether my opinions on this issue are noteworthy. I can take a debate about ideas, but attacking the person shows a weakness in your ability to argue logically.

I have considered starting an online Poker Blog centered on poker news and information instead of my own modest exploits, but I have not launched such a project and I am not sure I will. It is just something I am considering. And I have no sponsors, just a website and some blog software.

3) If your posting account's IP address were run for matches against other older accounts, which such account(s) would it match?

Don't be silly. I'm just a regular joe. My IP is provided by my landlord via Comcast cable and I share it with the other apartments. I don't even think that its a stable one, but I might be wrong as much time as I spend online. I don't have any old accounts. I don't have multiple accounts under this name or any other.

As hard as it may be to believe my opinions are my own and they are developed solely in my head. And I am open to changing them if someone presents info that lead me to question my beliefs. But I am a survivor of the political school of hard knocks and it would take a lot to convince me that pols are out for anything but political advantage.

If online gaming can provide that advantage than the pols will be on our side, if we can't than no matter what we do, we're on the short stack and no amount of clever skill vs. luck arguments will be of any worth.