by I. Nelson Rose

 “If you don’t know who the sucker is at the poker table, it’s you.” —Poker Proverb

 Joe Barton does not believe in science. He doesn’t even believe in facts. He is a typical Tea Party Republican Congressman from Texas: Barton is proud of what he calls his “100 percent” approval rating from the Christian Coalition (actually, it is 91 percent). He’s anti-gambling.

Greed is dangerous. But combine it with stupidity and arrogance, and it can be lethal.

Some of the insiders of Full Tilt Poker appear to have taken one of the most profitable businesses ever created and needlessly run it into the ground. Along the way, they got themselves indicted and sued in gigantic civil lawsuits. And they deprived hundreds of thousands of online poker players of hundreds of millions of dollars.

by I. Nelson Rose

“Ponzi Scheme – A form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors” —Google Dictionary

The Department of Justice has now alleged that Full Tilt, “was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme... Full Tilt also cheated and abused its own players to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The war of intimidation from the federal Department of Justice (DoJ)  against Internet gambling has now reached the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
 
This is no minor issue.
 
I have taught classes to the FBI, including on both Internet and Indian gaming. I have always found them to be professionals. They appreciate both their power and responsibility as the leading law enforcement agents of the federal government. So I was shocked to see this on the official FBI website:

[In the interest of full disclosure, I am working with the D.C. Lottery on a related plan, to bring in electronic Instant Ticket Vending Machines (“e-ITVMs”). These will look like the most advanced Class II machines, and will dispense instant lottery tickets.]
 
On June 29, District of Columbia officials held their first, sometimes heated, public hearing on plans to start taking money bets on poker and other games on the Internet, starting in September. Opponents did not want to hear arguments that all D.C. was doing was making legal what was already taking place, only with a local operator and local player deposits.
 
The present plans are 10 to 20 “hot spots,” where anyone 19 and older can bring their own laptop computer and play games for money. Think Starbucks, only with 100 percent legal gambling.
 

The Supreme Court of Sweden has just ruled that poker is either a game of skill or a game of luck, depending upon the rules.
 
At first, this sounds almost like a joke. But, in fact, the Court got it almost completely correct.
 
The poker game under consideration was Texas hold’em. Certainly, experienced players know this is a game of skill.
 
But courts have been reluctant to rule that any poker game is more skill than chance. Maybe it’s because they fear such a ruling will open the door to widespread cardrooms. Maybe they harbor deep anti-gambling feelings. Or, maybe, they are simply ignorant.
 

Gov. Christie Is Shocked, Shocked At Internet Gambling Bill

New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie wants to be President of the United States.

You can tell, because he is constantly traveling all over the U.S., holding press conferences to say that he does not want to run.

That’s how it is done in the U.S.

But Christie’s problem is that he is a Republican, which today means the only way he can be nominated is to win over the extreme conservatives of the “tea party.”

Conservatives say their first priority is small government.

But Christie is smart enough to know that voters who will pick the next GOP presidential nominee have higher priorities. While there are some fiscal conservatives, most Republicans are still social conservatives. The right is still the religious right, even if that means big government, such as intruding on decisions about abortion, gay marriage, etc.

In one of the very first cases heard by the federal court in Las Vegas in 2011, Harrah’s (now renamed Caesars) once again won the right to kick out card-counters. Roger L. Hunt, Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada, based his decision, in part, on a book I co-authored in 1998, Blackjack And The Law.

Opponents of legal gambling are notorious within the industry for making up numbers.

Robert Goodman, for example, is a discredited “anti” and founder of the grandly named, though now defunct, “United States Gambling Research Institute.” He is infamous for proclaiming, “The American Insurance Institute estimated that 40 percent of all white collar crime had its roots in gambling.”

We are in what I call the Third Wave of Legal Gambling. Twice before in American history, legal gambling spread across the nation, only to crash down in scandal and complete prohibition. The prior crashes left legal debris that is still on the statute books.