A report on online poker was authorized and ordered by the Florida state legislature this past sping. This report has been completed. It contains a detailed summation of the legal status of online poker on the internationl, federal and state level, from the government viewpoint. Everyone should read this report to understand how our lawmakers, both federal and state, view the legal status of online poker (and online gambling). I expect this report to play an very important role in how legislators on both the federal and states level proceed:

http://www.floridagamingwatch.com/wp...rnet-poker.pdf

For quotes from the report, and further discussions, see this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/57...-425-a-528191/

Dead link sir

First link doesn't work for me.

Correct Link

Sorry! Corrected:

http://www.floridagamingwatch.com/wp...rnet-poker.pdf

Mod- Please correct original link if you get a chance.

PX as usual solid info here

The quote from the opposition is ridiculous

"In addition, the anonymity of
players makes it more difficult to prevent
underage players and those with drug and
gambling addictions from participating in
Internet gambling (these people can be more
readily identified and prevented from play in a
land-based casino)."

lol actually go to a casino and say that what a joke

i personaly played live underage and stoned for years regularly lol no problem so irrelevant

Also omg

"In the United States, the Department
of Justice interprets federal statutes to prohibit all
forms of Internet gambling; however, the
department’s interpretation relies upon some
federal laws that predate the Internet."

way to be flexible US legal system. I think here change comes from the top

lol yeah.. guess ivey never played in a casino underage.. our opposition is a joke. Tired of their ridic arguments.

Wont you please think of the children.

I dont really understand what new info this presents. Seems like everything the report talked about was already pretty clear.

Read it, at no point do they question whether or not it is internet gambling which is a sad part. However the concessions on whether or not local state law determines the effectiveness of UIGEA is quite interseting.

The only part of the report that probably wasn't clear before was option 2: creating a DEA-like agency to enforce and capture illegal internet gamblers. Thats legitimately scary.

Very disturbing. They would probably make it a felony on par with crimes like rape, just like Washington state did.

The Florida report cites Focus on the Family saying Internet poker is: "a highly invasive and reckless form of taxation dependent on human exploitation.”

What the ****? FoF is not a mainstream group; it's totally a fringe organization and doesn't belong in this report.

Sorry for grunching, but how myopic is this report? There appears to be no mention of "skill" except in a few footnotes.

I also don't really see any recognition that personal liberties are involved. Did I miss something? Where they lay out all possible options, including the prohibition of poker, they quote the FoF, but they don't mention personal liberty issues once as far as I can tell.

They may as well write a report about the media, suggest that newspapers could be outlawed, and not mention the 1st amendment. How do you ignore that you would be regulating how adults can act in their own homes? I think it's grossly unreasonable to ignore that entirely, especially if FoF gets such acknowledgment.

It doesn't appear to be that they considered for one second the ramifications of outlawing adults from participating in a game of skill for money online in the confines of their own homes.

Negative externalities should obviously be voiced; but I'm not seeing ANY of our arguments in this document. In fact, in Exhibit 1, the only "disadvantage" cited for the option of prohibiting Internet poker is that it will difficult to enforce the prohibitions. Really?

Anyway, I haven't read it that carefully, and I wasn't expecting an opus about why Internet poker is good and right, but what I am seeing is FoF prominently quoted and advocates for poker and their views totally ignored.

But they also said in the report that an agency of that sort would have very little to work on and it's only leads would basically be people turning in their friends and family for witnessing someone playing online.

I just find it amazing that this govt thinks it can turn around and take laws that were signed into law decades before the invention of something and use it for enforcement. Especially this "Wire Act" now that everything will soon be wireless.

All I know is some religious nut who thinks gambling is bad and hurts society better not be telling me what I can do with my life when I don't believe in any of their horse ****.

Everyone needs to get over it and accept that it would be as big a waste of time as their war on drugs is to enforce and just take it and reap the tax benefits and better our society that way.

Florida is a red state, so their citation of that asshat organization does not surprise me at all.

Ty for posting this PX, interesting read.