I really agree with all of this. Particularly "casino games disguised as poker games". If we do achieve regulation, we don't want poker sites to use our good work to drive a whole bunch of uneducated aussies towards games that are no better than pokies.
Perhaps forcing poker sites to display the % of winners per game type would help.

I hate house edge impersonators like three card poker with a passion too.

As for displaying % of winners this is problematic in many ways. First of all if you do it on session poker will not look great. Roughly a third of the time roulette sessions end in a win or break-even. Poker tournaments don't match that and I doubt poker cash sessions do either.

If you set a time period again it can be misleading, not just because of variance but player mix. A site that has been recruiting new players effectively will likely have more losers at poker as a percentage, it may only be a couple of bucks but the percentage is misleading, it would make a softer site look worse.

House edge games should be required to prominently display the RTP (house edge). Poker should have a statement that the house "edge" is the rake or tournie fee and explain both, plus a statement that returns to player vary based upon how they play (without overselling skill to the vulnerable).

Clarity on poker rake and RTP required but % of winners is a terrible measure.

Thank you.

Just to let you know, I started Poker Asia Pacific with those 4 dash points you mentioned in mind and also mentioned in my submission and presentation that we were the first in the world to pay deeper in tournaments (not so top heavy), and slash cash game rake in half. Heck, I even created a freeroll to step your way in to live event tourneys.

Pokerstars hasn't a leg to stand on and owe the AU Govt some $200M-$250M before they're ever going to see an AU license - write it down. I'm not sure they will pay it but forget them anyway, they're extortionists and even have the gall to list themselves on the Toronto Stock Exchange while breaking multiple international laws and not even sending tax money... That's going to be super bad for them when my tables break everything down in the senate.

edit: You'll see poker cash games are still far less damaging "problem gambling" wise, than most other forms.

I thought you did well too. Sorry for the derail, but can you offer any links/reading materials to do with pro sports betting. I'm not intending to dedicate huge amounts of time towards it, but thought it might make an interesting side project to poker as I saw you mentioned the aus sites were quite soft.

Are they going to wait to this inquiry is processed before they continue with passing the legislation? Or will we be removed from stars this month?

So your intention is to try and get Pokerstars banned from the Australian Market?

As far as I'm aware, this whole thread, the AOPA, everyone's contribution has been towards saving online poker. Thus obviously includes Pokerstars considering it has by far the most traffic, the best tournaments and the best cash games.

Whether you like it or not, online poker is nothing without Pokerstars. So you may as well just ban online poker if Stars can't operate here.

I hope I misread what you said and that's not your intention.

I did not say anything about banning them.

Do not fall in to the trap of having a conformist view with Pokerstars as the be-all and end-all of online poker, particularly in Australia. The games will be twice as soft with an AU site that also allows international players from legal jurisdictions. We'll get market share/big liquidity from legal marketing and 1/2 price rake.

Cheers to you, kid.

I don't doubt the games will be soft, but the tournaments on other sites don't come close to Pokerstars. So how will a new site cater for the professional player?

Thanks Luke

I read the opening statements and discussion from the salvos and wow the comments in this thread do not do it justice. It was a complete and utter demolishing by Leyonhjelm.
I'm not sure how these things work but it seems to me like he looked at the schedule and purposely moved the salvos up first because he knew he could destroy all the data/stats they had provided and then moved the whole conversation onto this key point

Really excellent/impressive approach

+1

market share, lower rake and games being weaker is irrelevant if there isnt a big enough player pool available so that games run. If pokerstars, 888 and partypoker leave the Aus market for good, it will have drastic effects on the entire ecosystem of poker in this country regardless of whether an Australian based site opens.

so **** off with this "extortionist" crusade you have against because it does the real cause of saving online poker in Australia no justice or help. Or realize the fact that without them online poker is on life support here.

Market share is player pools. A super-strong, multi-million dollar marketing campaign on Australian TV will bring you the players you want and need.

Catch you guys later.

just started reading the trasncript and great stuff

when bernardi asks john about credit cards etc, i mean stars definitely don't lend credit, maybe they should focus on the banks who lend credit cards,

looking forward to reading your bit brabin

well done guys

brabin : if that is your agenda now is not the time to push it imo, save poker first then work on your site

Seems theoretical, and a very long-term thing, the practicality of the situation is, poker stars offers the most and would be devastating to have them removed, IMO.

Luke, just a question, the point where you say 10 hands an hour you can lose $75, what stakes were you basing that on?

The majority of aussie players play small stakes and would not even get close to losing 75 an hour so without context of stakes mentioning that figure without a stake size and letting them compare it to the 37.50 on pokies seems like you need to re clarify those numbers.

Also, I would focus on tournement players more instead of cash games since the majority of aussie players play mtts not cash games, and mtts are def less degenerate.

I'm assuming your point is max bet people lose 37.50 an hour on pokies, i think you need to reason that the majority of aussie players play mtts for fun, and even the majority of cash games players are either skilled or fun players that play lower stakes and definitely don't lose that amount per hour.

Furthermore, i believe that banning the main sites will turn more rec players to online offshore slots where the max bet can be as high as $800 per spin, people that play poker on their weekends as a hobby will be more inclined to sign up to offshore slot sites imo then even offshore poker sites and that could even be more dangerous in the long run.

Sorry but your comments are very alarming and don't represent what we are trying to achieve here.

Party Poker for example, is one of the top 3 largest online poker sites in the world and sometimes it struggles for games at certain stakes and the tournaments are mediocre at best and few and far between. You could not solely play on this site and have enough players / games at any time you wanted to play. So if this site struggles for games daily and is one of the top 3, then how would a new site be able to provide more games?

Sorry but that thinking is not realistic at all and damaging to the cause.

It would be great if Swoop or Joey could post and ease or clarify some of these statements we've been hearing from Luke as they are quite concerning and I very much hope you both don't share these views.

At the end of the day not everyone's going to agree about everything Luke has his opinions as does everyone else as long as he's supporting all Australian and international operators being able to get a license as long as they pay their licensing fees meet licensing conditions and pay any taxes that the Australian government says they need to in order to operate were close enough to the same page. I believe Luke's point was some of the sites would owe back taxes potentially to get an Australian license in some scenarios if they pay those taxes they'd be able to operate and if they don't they wouldn't get a license.

Obviously segregated player pools don't work and we will oppose those if it moves to a regulation process. Australian sites like say pap or if crown launch a site etc should be able to get licenses to compete with any offshore sites that choose to get a license in Australia though and offer games to both Australians and international customers which they can't under current law hence pap getting shut down etc the idea would be that would change in the future and let the market decide what sites win the players volume at the end of the day more options for Australian poker players can only be a good thing and licensed sites if we win will rise or fall on their merits

Given that pokerstars is the established and trusted market leader I think the majority itt would like them to remain in the Australian market. So I don't think it helpful (even if true) for Luke to be throwing around numbers on how much he thinks the back-tax should be for them, it may lead them to withdraw from the market even if it isn't banned.

lol absolutely and utterly clueless. Stick to sports betting.

Pretty bizarre attack on Luke from a few people here considering how effective his testimony was for our cause. He also helped the committee understand the destructive nature of pokies through his "$ lost per hour" stats.
Sure he's trying to promote his interests - like all of us.

You might be right but thinking of stats that I've heard before eg 10% of poker players are long term winners but broken down by major game type cash, Mtts, Stts, spins, heads up.

Brabin’s tables are here if you haven't seen them:
(http://www.aph.gov.au/sitecore/conte...onal_Documents). I don’t think Gainsbury will be impressed with the spreadsheet.

Note the graphs are from the Economist article, https://www.economist.com/blogs/grap.../daily-chart-4.
The data is from the H2 Gambling capital reports. This is one of the sources of the numbers that the O’Farrell review and IGA2016 memorandum used to justify how big offshore gambling was.

But as many have said, without pokerstars it's pretty much game over considering the traffic on that site. It isn't really the time to go against the highest volume site in the world.. It would be more prudent to promote personal interests after after legalisation of online poker.. i'm not saying don't promote his interests, but not yet.. it's going to burn us, at least for the foreseeable future.

I'm not trying to attack him, his comments on pokerstars itt just came across as contradictory to saving online poker to me. I didn't see his statement or the tables until now, only what he posted here.

But if what swoop said is correct, then that's fair as long as long they have the ability to get a licence after paying taxes.

I agree for what it's worth attacks on stars are unhelpful to our cause. The offshore sites we should be saying are bad so to speak are the ones like ignition and acr that ignore the law elsewhere and sites that are regulated by sham gambling commissions instead of real ones. It's going to be up to the Australian government to determine the conditions for sites to be licensed what fees taxes conditions etc apply and obviously the big sites fit the bill for sites that should be allowed if they agree to meet licensing conditions but that's a debate for after we win the regulate or ban argument and not something we want to focus on at this time.

Regarding any actual back taxes owed or whatever it shouldn't be on any of us to speculate that would be between the ato the gambling commission that regulates online poker and the sites themselves we have no idea if they'd even want back taxes they may just want a future cut of revenues etc I'm not a taxation law expert and I doubt anyone itt is either. Our case is legalise and regulate online poker once we get to the it's being regulated phase we can lobby for whatever suits our cause best at that time. Obviously stars and co staying in the market is in our interests as players so is Australian and overseas sites being able to compete with stars to potentially break their monopoly