Quote:
Originally Posted by Ray Zee
the problem is that since only some towns let gambling happen it creates little monopolys around. the town dosent care as long as it gets its share and only the customer gets hurt
While that is true in some fashion, the reality is due to network externalities there's always going to be a concentration of power in poker. Pre-BF, online poker always coalesced into one or two super-powerful sites (first Party, and then Stars and Tilt). There are only a couple of cardrooms in each big gambling mecca like Vegas or Atlantic City which offer mid-stakes or high-stakes poker games.
People like to play where there's an established, good poker game, where the game is always going, where there are plenty of tables, where other people are playing, etc. Thus, any poker market will naturally coalesce into one or two cardrooms who have a lot of market power. This would happen even if more towns legalized it.