Quote:
Originally Posted by dhubermex
I think all of us who are poker players/fans/contributors, or work in some capacity within the poker world are going to get taken to regulatory "Candy Mountain" on this. The state-regulated business model of U.S. commercial casino/cardroom licensure is going to provoke significant reactions that will be unique to each statewide jurisdiction (imo).
This scandal will have major implications for casino marketing/advertising, but like I said, the commercial regulatory changes will depend on the corresponding licensing/governing body.
This could also result in a crackdown on bomb pots, provoke buy-in limits and max-stacks, a consumer exodus away from poker to other casino gaming products, and perhaps adoption of a "Return to Player" purgatory system similar to what is spreading in the UK (aka £500 max payouts -- so far I think this only applies to FOBTs).
I think this all is going to turn out to be "just too much" for the real money, competitive poker world to overcome in the short-to-medium term. At least within the United States.
Only very few U.S. land-based casinos will find worthwhile value in major investment into monitoring/policing peer-to-peer gambling data security, game integrity, player deposits, player protections, prohibited hardware/software usage, commercial vigilance/enforcement, etc. It's just going to be too much of a headache for most gaming companies.
It's been proven that peer-to-peer gambling "net depositors" will support "for profit" aims up to a point, but there's really no legitimate case to make at this moment for promoting live poker over other casino verticals. Most casinos are going to have a greater aversion to PvP gambling moving forward I believe -- particularly at higher stakes.
This could spark a much more concentrated market for mainstream casino poker games. Perhaps Parx (Pennsylvania) and other casino poker rooms will benefit from this, but only if they're prepared to adequately secure their poker room.
I'm not a poker insider, but I have a few solutions that require NO investment that would have prevented ALL of this. This is NOT a technically complex issue, it is an issue of
-Lack of rules
-NON-enforcement of EXISTING rules
-Incompetence/ignorance among supposedly knowledgeable employees
-Lack of follow thru on feedback of same employees.
Although I fear you are correct in that a few agencies go overboard on the 'This is why we can't have nice things" platform, I would HOPE some REASONABLE, COMPETENT people will take this as an opening to attract some viewers to THEIR game, which is run with a 'drop your phone in the bag and play poker' mentality. More rake may not be better, but no cell phone at the table has EVER SPEEDED UP THE GAME! DiTCH 'EM!
SW