To whom it may concern,
My name is Ilavenil and I’m 36 years old married with two kids. I run my own business making games for mobile platforms. I played poker on and off both live and online since 2009. I am very sad about the fact online poker is getting banned along with other online gambling activities. Please allow me to give my thoughts for your consideration:
Poker is a very competitive game and promotes healthy competitive spirit amongst players. Australia being a sports nation with very high competitive spirit, banning online Poker will take away the edge that our people will have by gaining experience across the world. To give you a sample size, someone average playing online can play 5000 hands in a typical playing day and analyse it using latest analytical software to improve the game every day. Compare this to live, one can be lucky to play 200 hands in a 8 hour session. On top of it, there is no way to record and analyse the situation exactly and improve your game. If we take away online element, we are sadly removing the competitive nature and promoting gambling in poker.
Poker is very entrepreneurial in nature. You take calculated risks to win rewards. This is one of the reasons why top management universities across the world like MIT is offering Poker as one of their modules in their management courses. Here is the link to the course:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-sc...-poker-theory/ In particular, please watch or read the transcript from the part:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-sc...ker-economics/ where poker has helped the American economy grow in history. Being an entrepreneurial nation, we should be promoting activities that supports and grows the mindset and playing poker is one of the fine ways of doing that in my humble opinion.
I also need to mention the fact Poker is a social game where you make connections. Real connections! I now part of a facebook group with 2000 people who play poker across the globe. Any questions, help or recommendations I need, I can easily tap into their local knowledge. For example, travel recommendations, business opportunities, technology advice, etc can be obtained first hand. I dont think any other game or platform has this much social effect where people help other. And if you see gambling activities, people play against the ‘HOUSE’, which is not the case with Poker. Australians will be left behind if online poker is banned and the platform is taken away from us.
Thank you for taking the time to review my submission and I hope the right choice is made in promoting competitive, entrepreneurial and social spirit amongst us, Australians.
Ilavenil Arumugam