Hi. I'm a professional poker player.

I specialize and prefer online poker. I feel forced to play on Bovada, the unregulated, super super sketchy illegally operating website, known as Bodog outside of the US.

Despite the fact that shutting down Bovada would injure my bank account, my family's bottom line, I made this petition:

https://www.change.org/petitions/pre...ow-competition

I hope you'll sign.

https://www.change.org/petitions/pre...ow-competition

Or at least let's add Bovada to the debate on poker in the United States. Pokerstars and Fulltilt are universally agreed to be better "actors" in the poker world than Bovada and Calvin Ayre.

He and his illegal company should not be allowed to peddle a corrupted form of poker (anonymous poker is not poker).

Bovada has been around for many years and pays out. Why do you think it's sketchy? Bovada caters to recreational players. I see nothing wrong with it. The rake is a tad high but other than that I like the site.

Lets not be douches and draw unwarranted attention to the best option us players have atm.

vote with your pocketbook and patronize other ****ty us facing poker rooms

This.. Gtfo of here with that nonsense

This is why we all of us talking right now are destined to never have any true type of power or wealth: Because we're smart enough to make it into the 1% of wage slaves who can even BEAT THIS GAME, but not smart enough to realize how we're in the 99% for every important game.

It's Calvin Ayre vs. Us. And we aid and abet him every day by playing on his site, myself included.

All systems are FUBAR, boys and girls. Bovada is the lowest hanging fruit. Let's un-FUBAR it.

From what I gather, your grievance is that Bovada "isn't poker" because the tables are anonymous. I think you're also complaining about the hand history, but your poorly-proofed webpage leaves that issue kind of murky to me.

Oh, you also don't like Calvin Ayre..so you want Obama to shut the site down.

By the way, is EndofNovelty a family name?

Nice, endofnovelty. I am with you, but I am not gonna sign the potion cuz I'm lazy and. I didn't read all of it cuz. I already know all the BS... I bet if we had no online poker then people would try harder to push for legalization and regulation... I do not trust any unregulated site...

Ham, are you hamming it up with an anonymity call-back?

Vegan. Nice. Thanks. I hope you're actually a vegan. I've been vegan for 2.5 years. Maybe now folks on this thread will dislike me even more.

Ham: I don't have a webpage. If you have an issue with my proofreading of the petition on change.org, first of all, thanks for reading the petition, that's all I could hope for.

If I don't cut muster as a proofreader, please point out a specific example, so I can improve. It's all one could hope for.

Endofnovelty, as far as I know, is not a family name. It's not mine, at least. But it should be someone's surname, don't you think! Nice sense of humor, ham! Awesome post.

OP you don't have to play on Bovada and are not forced to.

If you feel you have a better option in this market, by all means pick something else.

It's the wild wild west out here since Black Friday. Especially when you compare the other options for US players, we are quite fortunate.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face, OP.

Why not spend your energy trying to get online poker back in the US rather than trying to take away the only viable option?

When we succeed in getting trustworthy sites like Pokerstars back in the States, then you can go ahead and try to behead the beast. But until then, why don't you chill out.

Alright! My vegan brotha! I am not a vegan as of right now, but I was when I created this name, but it also means a Vegas resident (to me anyways).

I would totally be a vegan, but I suck at cooking/preparing food and I don't know what to buy or what to make and I am always busy, ect... When I was a vegan I only knew a couple different meals and I know I wasn't getting enough variety and nutrition, plus I was always busy and didn't eat enough... I would love to have someone that would cook me healthy meals though... It's really hard for me to beat the convenience of fast food...

If you have any advice for my situation I would be happy to hear it... I will read your petition now since you probably read this...

Good petition. I would like if it said get rid of Bovada or regulate it, instead of saying let Pokerstars operate, but that is just my preference...

It doesn't help your silly petition to throw around made-up facts that are at least an order of magnitude understated.

Just because you have an opinion doesn't make the thought a fact, no matter how much certainty you present it with. Instead of presenting your flawed opinions as facts, try asking for the opinions of others and see if anyone in the world even shares your opinion. I, for the most part, like what Bovada is doing.

I like the part about "desparate poker-playing Americans".

Really thought this through, huh ?

You live somewhere where it is illegal for anyone to offer you a place to earn your living online ?

1. Why not move to New Jersey or Nevada and play on legal, regulated onlie poker sites ?

2. Why not move outside the US and play on PokerStars ?

You are a professional poker player, whose family's financial bottom line depends upon your playing, or so we are told ?

1. Have you consulted with your alleged family before cutting off their source of support ?

2. Why migrate South across the Rio Grande to send monies home to your family from a different Land of Opportunity ?

3. If your poker income dries up, have you considered airport scamming as a career ? You can even start moonlighting now.

What is airport scamming?

NewOldGuy, did you MEAN to say I was understating things, w/r/t statistics?

At the very, very, very most, 5% of poker players are profitable for their lives.

Is this up for debate?

And one thing regarding cutting off one's nose to spite one's face: Am I the one doing it?

I'm still playing on Bovada, because like I've said already, it is the best option. We all agree. Merge agrees so much that they're changing their entire model.

If you're against me, I assume it's because you're in the 1-5% who make money at this game -- You are the ones cutting off your nose to spite your face -- taking the money now, getting more and more friendly to recreational players.

Bovada is the best of our current choice of evils. We can argue for our own limitations and get to the keep them or we can beg Calvin Ayre and his Job Creator friends to not barrel full-speed ahead in a vacuum of regulation -- it's only going to get worse.

Bovada is raping us, but it's the only sex we can get -- is that really the argument against what I'm saying?

You have no argument since no one is forcing you to play there.

OP let us look at poker in another light, what if a player thought to himself that anonymous poker was the true form of poker and started a petition on twoplustwo to ban all illegal sites that have poker not anonymous, how would you feel?? Essentially you are doing the same thing to the players that dont mind playing on anonymous or normal sites with your narrow viewed mind. Start a petition to fight for legalization instead of spiting bovada because they went anonymous to cater to the players funding their bottom line.

Vegan, I actually want to go into business selling these Gardein fake chicken and fake beef sliders. They sell them in most grocery stores for $4-5, you get 4 little sliders, and they more than satisfy the recurring need for greasy or at least greasy-seeming food.

Daveh07, I sign most petitions put in my face, so I would sign that guys. A fortiori, I might start the same petition to spite my own face spiting my own face.

How bout this: we ban all illegal sites, period, anonymous or not anonymous. What doesn't seem to be sinking in here is, I'm in your tribe, y'all, whether you like it or not.

I know there's a real Pooh-bah waiting to chime in and FINALLY argue me intelligently, but Dave, I don't think this is you, at least not yet.

No spite for Bovada. I'm playing on there as I write this. As with many corporations, I feel like they've cut off their nose to spite their face by THINKING that they are "catering to the players funding their bottom line."

Just because they're winning in a Black Market scenario, doesn't mean these tactics would work in a free market.

Are you opposed to the free market Dave? Are you a communist?

Just because Merge copycats them, doesn't mean either of them is right, or that either of them is helping their bottom line, short or long term. (If anyone has relevant statistics, please enlighten both Dave and myself)

Free market, free, free, please, free.

First you demand regulations in your petition and now you decide you want free markets instead.

I'm sure you don't realize it but online poker is regulated (or not) by each state and in some states Bovada is not illegal now. There is no federal law making it illegal anywhere.

Right. Agreed. So then, are you willing to finish the thought NewOldGuy? If it's "legal," yet international competitors are kept out, and you're OK with that, then we have to move beyond the question of "legality."

"Legality," in your sense, is the least of my concerns, sir. If you're choosing to define "legality" as "what Sheldon Adelson and those who share his interests decide it means," then we have bigger problems.

I thought we the people defined what "legal" means. Personally, I think there is nothing more important than a free market.

A people without a free market are not free.

Do you really believe we live in a society with free market? Sorry to burst your bubble but it's all a facade. Choices you think you have aren't really choices. It's just a different name but in the end it's from one or two giant companies. There is NO free market.

I'll play along. So let's say we ban Bovada. We have nothing. Then what? You're gonna go after Merge? Then what? Do you think after all these bans, we'll have regulated poker? If you think that's what's gonna happen, you're living in a fantasy world. I already think you're living in a lala land where everything is jolly.

I'm with you till this point, Spawn, agree with you completely.

Except, let's be honest, we can't ban Bovada based on your first paragraph.

Please follow your own logic. The truth is, it's not a free market. The invisible hand is really a bunch of invisible rich guys hands, which is fine. We're the fish swimming in the water, which is to say, this is our "given."

A petition saying "let's ban bovada" is silly if it actually thinks it can accomplish this goal.

However, I thought the title, "let's make a tiny bit of noise on in one tiny cul-de-sac of the internet and maybe Calvin Ayre will lower rake by ONE PENNY."

Yes, I do live in La-La Land. I freely admit it. I'm a vegan for no other reason than I think we can all eat our food without being cruel jerks about it. And this is La-La, and I don't go around trying to slap the corn dog out of your mouth.

Have you never visited La-La Land? We're fricking friendly as all get-out. And the burgers taste like your burgers used to taste, trust me. Just without the cancer.