I don't think Tony is worried about poker at the moment.

He's helping farmers with the drought.

08-28-2013, 05:08 AMChances are you have a few more weeks to play online poker in Australia, a few months if the Coalition is slow to act on their new policy.

lol Trent, lol...

I'll be landing in Australia in a couple days so with my luck it will be banned in a couple days. Sorry guys.

stfu.

9 months until I win my $100

I have a friend high-ish up in the LNP who is a poker player, he isn't too worried about anything immediate, so i'm not too worried about anything immediate.

Poker just isn't a priority one way or the other for the coalition right now, they have their hands full with boat people (lol) and trying to repeal the carbon tax and keeping Clive Palmer from blocking all of their legislation in the Senate.

Also A+ image of Tony with the farmers, especially if the quote is real (is it?)

Think about it for a minute, I'm sure you'll work it out.

Well it's unlikely to be real but politicians have said dumber things

Abbott is a disaster waiting to happen when speaking in public and is one of a few people capable of fumbling out a sentance like that

but he can probably spell "sentence".

I doubt they care much about it

I continue to wish you the best. Meanwhile the UK Act that will require Stars to take a UK Licence has finished the report stage in the Lords. Still on track for implementation this year and the licence still requires licence holders to refuse access to players where their play is illegal.

The UKGC response on the Licence Conditions and Code of Practice consultation is due this month. With luck poker sites will have lobbied well enough to get grey market access but the situation in Aus is sadly not grey, which is why you can't download the Stars app from apple.

I'll pay up with a happy heart if you win.

"young gamblers" was the topic on SBS Insight tonight, a panel of a young online pro, a bangladesh student and a former pokie addict discussed gambling etc

again we see australian poker players trying to defend the right to play poker because its a skill game. I dont know if its a blind spot for these guys or ignorance, but poker cannot be profitable for everybody. People who want to ban online poker arent doing it because they think its not a skil game, they want to ban it because a lot of young Australians are losing money at it in an irresponsible manner

When you say "yeah but its a skill game I make money from it" all they hear is "please dont stop these people from giving me their money through their addiction". They arent going to take you seriously, and are more likely to view poker as a game of predators and prey, where its their job to protect the prey

We should be defending our right to play poker for the simple fact its our right to do with our own money what we like, whether its through addiction and lack of responsiblity or not.

If they can flood suburbs with poker machines and new venues every year, they can allow us to gamble online as well

I understand the show was more pinpointed at understanding why young gamblers gamble and get an idea of how they think etc, theres been a lot of comments about why its ok to play poker and the reasoning behind it wont get ppl very far in making people accept it

The problem with this argument is the government or any government for that matter punishes the majority for what is really the weakness of the minority to be able to bet responsibly.

I see this happening anyway by forcing the opinion its a skill game. It still wont stop people losing and theyre the people the government want to protect, whether theyre losing to a casino or another Australian isnt really a concern for them

As swoop says, I dont think its a major current issue with the government, but if the time comes when an argument needs to be made as to why it should be ok to play online, arguing because a select few win all the money that the majority lose wont get us far.

Its our right, its as simple as that, we should be allowed to play. Their argument that "its just buttons and the money doesnt seem real" is ******ed, lets not go against their stupid argument with an equally stupid argument that its ok because some of us win.

You also have to wonder with poker not being taxed there is no incentive for the government to not come along and ban it based on the fact as you allude to that a fair amount of people are losing. This is in stark contrast to pokies where it is understandable for the government to continue to allow the operation of gaming machines as they get a percentage of the money generated but just have to do the socially right thing and put the odd disincentive sign here and there.

Honestly its a scary thought if the government did take it seriously, and employed some people on their side to look into online poker and how it works, because what they'll find is

-rake (ie the casino) eats up massive amounts of the circulated money, taking it out of the players hands
-a small % of players return a profit from it that they dont pay tax on and use it as an income
-the rest of the players are under an illusion that they are better than they are and continue to play with the actual belief that winnings and profit are coming, creating an environment for disaster for these compulsive individuals

Its an incredibly dangerous environment that the government will be keen to control/ban. The only argument I can see combating those things is its our right, its a free country, let us play.

Sometimes I think poker players actually believe they win the money from a magic black hole of poker funds, and not actual people who are playing with their paycheck.

there are 5 different pokie venues within walking distance (about 5ks guessing) of my house. Thats a massive amount, one of them was built in the last year.

The government is completely hipocrytical in its stance on gambling, but again I dont think arguing that is a way to winning.

A responsible government would limit and reduce the amount of pokie machines in the suburbs etc, allow online regulated gaming with some element of control and tax the companies who want to operate in Australia. Obviously we would want to play against the world but I dont see that happening if it all went legal

But a government that is looking after its own agenda and stay in power, they'll let the sleeping dog of poker machines lie and ban online gaming in an effort to look tough, while still reaping the all the tax revenue of the current gaming setup, even creating more tax revenue by pushing online gamblers into live venues.

But if your argument is that poker should be kept unregulated because it is our right and we should be free to play when we want, then why limit the amount of pokies?

To be consistent between pokies and poker, there would still need to be some form of regulation of poker sites.

The difficulty in banning online poker compared to banning online gambling is the result that we have seen with the repeal of the pokies laws that Gillard introduced in 2012.

We have seen both sides support the repeal of these laws which will relax the limits that were placed on players on the amounts they could bet and the money they could obtain from nearby ATMs (IIRC and amongst other things) - and that has been mainly due to the pressure and perhaps donations made by community clubs and big hotels in particularly to both major political parties.

Now in the same light I can't see why these big online gambling companies (such as your sportsbet, tab) won't donate money and/or exert pressure on both parties to get the same result or prevent the same sort of restrictions that that 2012 law produced (if they don't already).

So given that arguably there will be a status quo for no restrictions on how online gambling currently operates or is regulated - I don't see the government making a different decision on online poker for the sake of consistency and the fact that there is no clear difference between the two from a layman's point of view in terms of potential for loss.

I couldn't get through that young gamblers episode, it was tilting me too hard. Basically the usual grouping of pokies and poker and interviews with losing/ break even poker players..
There was a question asked to one of the poker fish about time played per day. He said something like up to 12hrs and the entire room was gob smacked. lol.

then there was a section with sports betting donkeys and it was again linked back to poker.

I lost count of the amount of times "but how much did you lose?" got asked. one of the poker guys was going on a rant about how much poker he'd played and how it had taken over his life but then finished off with that he'd only invested $100 but was break even for years.

get some winning players on these shows ONE TIME!!!

IMO a general summary of poker to differentiate it from all other casino games is that it IS actually possibly to beat the game long term. This is what makes the game competitive as people actually have to use their brain and not rely purely on dumb luck. This is NEVER covered in these stupid shows.

I thought it was all pretty lame. A few kids betting a few bucks here and there and a young grinder making 35k a year playing poker.

I was waiting for the old Indian research dude to pipe up with 'everyone loses in the end regardless of how good they think they are' but it didn't come to that.

I thought the grinder was pretty competent but really he didn't get challenged much.

All the young degens were hardly degens. They'd lost a few hundred in their life except the one Asian dude who blew $1mil in 2 weeks betting on horses. Lol.

Both Poker and the Pokies should be legal and regulated, I just think the amount of pokies in the state is way too high and very dangerous, they create problem gamblers.

Limiting the amount of pokies doesnt make it illegal or impossible to play, but it just makes people drive that little bit further etc to play, which in turn will result in less people bothering and more money in their pockets. You still can play the pokies and have that right, you just shouldnt have a poker machine on your doorstep (but we should have online poker in our living rooms?! i hear people say)

With a regulated poker site, you make it clean fair and legal but things like a cap on deposits etc in place as an element of control, theres no control on how much money you can funnel down a poker machine or blackjack table. Making people create accounts and pass ID checks along with deposit limits is a good amount of control to keep fish playing and the government/people happy imo

Yes its possible, but the nature of the game means its impossible for everybody to win as well. So while young players say "yeah but if you work harder you'll win and the guy that works less hard will lose so its all good right?"

Politicians arent going to swallow that, theyre out to protect the guy that doesnt want to work hard at his game and just degen (which we all know there are plenty of). Arguing that you're smarter than him so you deserve his losses wont win you the argument.

They want that guys money going into things that are taxed and stimulate the economy, not your online account.

I think eventually the government will do something about enforcing the ban whether it be in this term or the next. It's just too much of a political freekick for a very socially conservative liberal party - it makes them look their doing something when in reality all that it would take to get pokerstars out of the country would be a phone call.

Also, after reading bit of a report tabled last year on regulation, the suggestions contained in it would be as bad as banning it imo. A few of the suggestions involved a blanket ban on cash games and limits on how many tournaments you can play in at one time

Yes I agree it is obviously not possible for everyone to win, but why does everyone need to win? At the end of the day, its a form of entertainment. Entertainment costs money and there are people out there that enjoy going out and playing (I can think of many reg fish at crown) and they set themselves limits, but are happy to lose and play.

On a different note, one thing that sickens me is the amount of advertising the lotto gets on TV/radio etc. Its a complete joke and I am sure the average joe out there wouldn't even think twice about people that dump money in lotto. But as soon as you mention "poker" they will immediately think degenerate gambler.

this is the exact argument I would rather see people making when discussing why it should be legal

its an enterainment product for people, exactly the same as other currently legal betting games that have a -ev result

its a much better argument than just saying the stronger can profit from the weaker so we should be allowed to compete