{"id":58,"date":"2009-04-29T03:21:50","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T07:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2009-04-29T03:28:32","modified_gmt":"2009-04-29T07:28:32","slug":"a-traitor-to-poker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"A traitor to Poker."},"content":{"rendered":"

You can spot this tell a mile away. Steve Wynn, a billionaire Las Vegas casino developer and operator, has come out<\/a> against the legalization and regulation of online gambling and poker. He claims: “Even though it would be a benefit to our company, we are strongly opposed.”<\/p>\n

His real motivation isn’t hard to read. It’s the same motivation as that of certain nations (Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are specified in the article at the link) which are unwilling to legalize online poker “because it would affect their state-run gaming operations.” Online gambling and poker represents major competition for Wynn’s brick-and-mortar casinos. It’s a heck of a lot easier and cheaper for a bloke with a hankering for poker to saddle up to his computer than it is to hop on a plane to Las Vegas. Wynn wants the U.S. government to maintain the status quo and keep this virulent competition out of the mainstream and on the fringe, just as most state governments have long obliged the Las Vegas racket by outlawing gambling in their states to create this artificial oasis in the Nevada desert. Not that the states haven’t also been motivated by a preference that their subjects blow their money on state lottery tickets rather than play a game they actually might win.<\/p>\n

I’ve played a lot of poker and am a big fan. I won a seat to the 2006 Main Event of the World Series of Poker by playing in a freeroll tournament at FullTiltPoker.com, and then won almost $18k at the Main Event. Nevertheless, I’m ambivalent about the current push to unequivocally legalize online poker, with its associated promise of “regulation.” The pitch to government is, “Think about all those tax revenues you’re missing out on.” This seems like a sorry deal for poker players.<\/p>\n

Here’s a dirty little secret: It’s easier than ever to log-in and buy-in at either FullTiltPoker.com or PokerStars.com. I haven’t heard of any instances in the U.S. of anyone being busted and arrested in their homes for playing online poker. You can draw your own conclusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can spot this tell a mile away. Steve Wynn, a billionaire Las Vegas casino developer and operator, has come out against the legalization and regulation of online gambling and poker. He claims: “Even though it would be a benefit to our company, we are strongly opposed.” His real motivation isn’t hard to read. It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/60"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}