Some good news.

[dippydoo]

[ QUOTE ]
Selling marijuana is against federal law but california legalized medical marijuana and personal use of marijuana going against federal law. Now you can buy 1 oz of marijuana with a doctors note just by walking into a cannabis show. So dont tell me states cant make playing online poker legal!

[/ QUOTE ]

And if you check the news today, you'll see that the DEA busted one of these stores in West Hollywood.

Even if CA says it is ok, the Feds still don't. The Feds have authority, higher prision terms, tougher prisions, better funding, etc.

I saw someone pointed out the CA has a repub. govenor. That's about 50% true. Arnold is a member of the party, but he doesn't even come close to following the party line.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Microbob,

A lot of what you're saying was alleged when people noted they were donators for Frist's campaign.

I also read somewhere that the US defended the legislation because of moral mumbo jumbo.

[/ QUOTE ]


Yes, the US defended this based on their moral jumbo.
And the WTO said, "Fine, if you're so morally bothered by this then you can't have the horse-racing and online-lotteries either. By having these then you obviously aren't THAT morally opposed to it. You are just bothered by other countries trying to do business there too."


I think the U.S. had a certain time-frame in which to comply and that time-frame recently ran out I believe.


But the WTO only partly bought the U.S. argument.


Again, I only know bits and pieces of all this stuff.
But I'm pretty sure the UIGA legislation is directly contradictory to the WTO ruling that the U.S. COULD make such moral arguments because of the carve-outs for horse-racing and lotteries.

========================================

The whole in-state thing would definitely be sucky.
Possibly not so bad if they got it in California and you live there.


And maybe there's a possibility that Harrah's can convince the states somehow to let them set up a state-wide network of online-poker not unlike powerball.

But the way PowerBall works is different because they could definie it as you not placing your bet directly against someone else in a different state.


the idea of a state-wide powerball-like network for online-poker came up before and the whole 'placing the wager within state-lines' thing seems to cancel out that idea.


All of this stuff is really hypothetical and it will take someone a lot smarter than me to look at it and try to move forward with any of it.

[NU Star]

A lot of card rooms seem to operate on quasilegal status. So, I would imagine there would some possible workarounds. Are bets in tournaments really considered bets?

[SlapPappy]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not looking forward to legalized, state regulated poker. It will likely be some retarded castrated version with "bet no more than $40 on any one hand" and $5 rake. When i read "regulated" i see "monopoly", and it can't possibly be good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I sort of agree. I'll just add that I personally don't see how regulation is even possible considering each state has different gambling laws and this would require a lot of states to interact, while each having different laws. I don't see this happening.

Take Washington for instance making poker playing a felony. And, North Dakota bascially wanting to allow online poker sites to move to their state and start business.

[MicroBob]

I agree that Dr Savage's prediction for state-regulated poker could be accurate.

The sites themselves might be set up in such a way as to be completely impossible to profit.


NU's Q about whether a tournament 'bet' actually counts as a 'wager' is probably a valid one imo.


I can legally play in a chess 'tournament' in any state where a bunch of players get together, pay a $300 entry-fee or whatever, and play 5 or 7 rounds or something.

But if I play someone in Washington Square Park for $10 a game I'm technically 'gambling' just as much as if I set up a 3-card monty table.


I believe the same is true for Magic The Gathering.
This is a card-game that can legally have a tournament anywhere in the country I believe.

No license necessary or anything like that...just like chess I think.

Poker might be able to sneak in with an idea of, "after they pay the entry-fee they aren't placing any wagers per-se. they are just playing the tournament."

It's really stupid that something that is actually HIGHER variance like MTT's might have some sort of technical chance of sneaking in while cash-games might not.

But placing an individual wager is against the law.
While paying an entry-fee for a tournament of some kind of game (chess, or Magic) is less illegal somehow.


Crazy.


So the problem with trying to interpret the possibilities here also is in the idiocy of the situation and the language.

Is poker a game of 'skill' and stuff like that.
Technically, there is some sort of element of luck involved in EVERY game imaginable imo.
But you don't see anyone clamorring to shut-down baseball because there's too much luck in determining the winner.

[MaverickUSC]

Vote Libertarian.

Devo