With all the threads im reading about the injustice of black friday and how unfair it is I cant help but think this opinion is biased and heavily weighted on just one side of the coin.

Yes I agree that its just not right that people lost money they had on fulltilt. But I only want to discuss the fact that people can no longer play online. People will say they have lost their livelihoods but how many people has these online poker sites and gambing sites hurt. For every person who is making a living from poker there is more people losing their savings and lifes to poker and gambling sites.
Not only that but its become clear from reading the forum that poker brings big problems to even winning players, even winning players can suffer from addiction, they may be making money, but their life is not balanced and they suffer in much more important aspect of their life.

So could it have been a good day, maybe not for most on here, but in the bigger picture, maybe?

Not sure if srs.

The ppl who lose find other ways, may it be casinos or whatever. If youre addicted, things like a shutdown of online play doesnt prevent you from losing. Overall black friday definitely did more harm than good, Id say the amount of ppl whos lifes are better now purely due to that is actually really low.

Those who blow their life savings are probably degenerate gamblers, not addicted to poker. Should we outlaw all forms of gambling to keep them safe?

What about cigarettes and alcohol?

cliffs: poker is bad mmmmmkkk

There's a thread about this somewhere, titled something about what you've been doing since bf. I don't classify myself as a degen addict, however, you can count me in the 'really low' percentage of people that benefited from bf. The reason is simply because before bf, my skill was break-even/win a little lose a little standard. With that kind of win rate, I was susceptible to spending a couple of hours grinding it out where other activities would have produced richer fruit. Since bf, my skill vs others has drastically reduced thus leaving me as a losing player and so grinding poker is clearly not an option.

I suspect there are a 'great number' of people in my spot that are better off doing something else rather than wasting time playing in games that are break even/win a little lose a little.

i beg to differ

it was +ev for the avg player from us, -ev for row,sites,

doj slapped a big suit, they lose their income stream of processor seizures. so prob 0ev

iwonder if full tilt sold out stars and UB to the doj

I think this is pretty naive. It's not just a coincidence that las vegas has so many degenerate gamblers compared to other cities. Having easy and immediate access to ones preferred form of gambling contributes to gambling addiction and degeneracy greatly.

I have some degenerate tendencies and went broke living in vegas. I would go out to get drunk and inevitably i'd end up in the pit losing money i couldn't afford to lose. I moved from Vegas and haven't had a problem since. It was the ease of access to the casino that was the problem for me and the same can be said of many online poker degenerates. I'm sure having online poker taken from them helped many of their lives tremendously. And that's not to mention the would-be online gambling addicts that never discover online poker because it's not easily available.

I have a lot of libertarian views so i don't advocate making online poker illegal but it's hard to deny that it can be destructive and messes up a lot of lives...

How on Earth was black Friday a good day for Americans who love to play poker online OP? Why are you even on 2+2? I disagree with all your points and views and when you are playing poker no one is forcing the loser player to play. I do not feel bad if I take someones money in poker because they can also have a shot at taking my money as well.

I dont say that there are no cases where it was good for people that online poker was banned. But you have to see it from a quantitive perspective. I live in Europe and I have 60k stuck on FTP. I can still access all other sites and theoretically have the option to gamble all my other money away. So yes, for some degens in the US this might be a small blessing, but its a huge ****-up for basically all other countries in the world where onlinepoker was possible.

Fair point for other countries, but black friday is not the reason your money is stuck on FTP. It was the gross incompetence / criminal negligence of the executives that used your bankroll in addition to the rake to pad their pockets. It turns out that FTP was a company that needed to be shut down and is a great example of why these sites need better regulation.

Do you have any evidence to support this at all or is this just your wild speculation?

The truth is that very few people are problem gamblers (it obviously varies a lot depending on what demographics that you're looking on, but in the UK you're looking at about 0.6% of the general population - about the same number of problem gamblers as there are psychopaths), and even fewer are pathological to the point where they experience the very serious consequences you're talking about.

There is also evidence to suggest that problem gamblers prefer fast-paced, high-risk games - so the incidence of problem gambling in poker is likely to be less than it is for, say, roulette.

Of course, when somebody does lose their life savings gambling, it's much more interesting to the media than when somebody goes through life gambling responsibly, and so tales of gambling woe are significantly overrepresented in society.

In my opinion, the actions of the US DOJ on Black Friday (directly or as a contributing factor) had and continue to have a far more negative effect on the average poker player than problem gambling did in the entire history of online poker.

"Each year in the United States, approximately 440,000 persons die of a cigarette smoking-attributable illness, [...] $75 billion in direct medical costs, and $82 billion in lost productivity."

According to your own logic the USA should ban cigarettes & tobacco now. It would be overall a good day for the majority.

Maybe adults should be allowed to make their own decisions? At least as long as they don't affect somebody else?

jesus f christ.