Right. And you can't deny that they don't exist somewhere. Adelson is quite real.

im largely basing it on the fact that in 2001 there was no bellagio.com. these guys coulda gotten it done. instead they supported banning poker thru the uigea.

im actually gettin kinda mad thinking about it.

I'm not sure I totally get your point, but I have seen what online education has done to the profit margin of higher education places, e.g. University of Phoenix, and have seen what places like Amazon have done to brick and mortar stores everywhere.

The constant is that removal of the massively high cost of the physical infrastructure and replacing it with high-end servers in a datacenter has to recognize such staggering savings on a large scale that I imagine that sites are lining up to get into the action, because past a certain point it's nearly pure profit. In order to expand you don't need more floorspace or more dealers, you just need more servers and bandwidth and an algorithm which expands to meet present demand.

I'm not an expert on the cost of data relative to physical sites but it has to be fractional, which I assume is why this is such a no brainer. To me it would have a lot less to do with the brand and a lot more to do with another way to improve the bottom line. Any brand recognition gained would be a bonus.

Which is why them being against it and keeping the genie in the bottle seems really stupid UNLESS they determined that they were too far behind the curve to gain necessary market share.

Kevin MacDonald gives the GOAT performance by a former Kids in the Hall cast member in a rap music video in Roses.

The problem with this is (and this is important): they will not get pit gambling games legalized online in any way, shape or form anytime soon. It simply won't happen. That cannot pass this Congress or any Congress I can imagine.

IF blackjack, roulette, craps and all of the above COULD be legalized and regulated in even the distant future, I'd agree with you whole heartedly.

But they won't be.

As someone just IM'd me:

"tbh if they were smart
theyw ould cap the limits
at small-midstakes
and just kill everyone with rake"

Would the fish still play? I think so.

Yeah, but if you include all videos, this one might well include the winners.

This isn't smart and it should be pretty obvious to see why.

Perhaps. But see: France.

You guys (well some of you) make the critical error of using logic and rational analysis to come to the best common sense solution.

Unfortunately, that's not how lawmaking often works :-P.

(especially when a wide variety of interest groups are represented at the table with strong opinions)

Karak,

I think the problem with your arguments, or their arguments I guess, is that the assumptions are almost self contradictory. For it to hurt the casinos, online poker will have to siphon off enough players to hurt their B&M business (and it's unclear it wouldn't increase travel to Vegas) and yet not be profitable enough in its own right to make up for this. This despite the low overhead of online games, your own argument that B&M poker rooms don't make all that much, regulations reducing competition etc. That's a pretty small sweet spot even if everything goes as pessimisticly as you say.

Let me be clearer: B&M poker pulls people into the casinos. They then gamb000000l at things other than poker which is $$$.

If they can use online poker (in their heads), to drive people to come to their BM casinos, they may play in the pit too!

Funny this site is overflowing with degenerate gamblers that will gamble on all kinds of things, and it seems that for a really high percentage of the youngish posters that online poker was where we first got comfortable with the idea of gambling for more than insignificant stakes. It was certainly the beginning of my path to degeneracy.

in a perfect world, the WSOP plays every single event online at wsop.com. my god would that be the best thing ever...the days would be littered with must-play satellites and T$ for multiple entries

obviously less than 0 chance, but holy **** that'd be incredible

funny how that works

Are you replying to me with this?

I get all it, my point is that it's pretty out there to think that internet poker will take enough people away from B&M that they lose money in the pit and poker room but don't make more in profits from those people that play enough online that they stay away. It driving people to the casinos strengthens my argument.

I agree that the lawmakers could screw this up, but I'm saying that unless the casinos are idiots, they won't want a cap on limits or to drive the rake too high, unless they want to kill the golden goose.

And yeah, if this goes through, I'd expect the site to award casino comps as bonuses and/or incentives to play a lot of hands.

Disagree. In a perfect world there would be huge online tournaments like the Pokerstars WCOOP, but with much larger fields, and you'd still have a massive B&M WSOP.

Karak with a pretty horrible "lol dumb casino people" strawman ITT.

Regardless, Caesar's has banked its entire future on online gaming spending tons of money and acquiring several companies to help prepare for launch. MGM/Boyd payed a mega premium to lock up PartyPoker. Stations bought their own software platform. IGT not only did that too, they also spent a half-billion on a social media game development company. Prior to the shutdown last year, Wynn had put all its eggs in the Full Tilt basket. These are not the actions of people who think it's a marginal business or are worried about protecting their incredibly teeny tiny (other than Caesars) insignificant, irrelevant low margin B&M poker revenue.

Karak is 100% right that there will be an opt-in. It's basically a non-starter for opposition they are trying to convert, and a ultimately, it's throwaway issue that the supporters of the bill will gladly concede to maximize the chances this gets done.

"banked its entire future?"

come on bro

honestly, I could see capping limits or increasing rake to a point where it makes the games tough to beat for the type of hourly rates that we saw in the not so distant past. Driving the online pros away might actually result in more players coming to a site because they wont see the same faces everytime they logon as would be the case for anyone who played above nl100. While newer players will play less volume on average, they may be able to make up for it by adding a much larger player base. The fish will be able to win more pots and bigger pots in a manner where there real winrate (or in reality, lossrate) improves despite a higher rake. I could see a situation where it isn't worth a pro's time to play on a site but would result in a huge amateur influx. This is probably the ideal scenario for casinos.

Yes, of course.

Except I don't really think they are dumb. I might not agree, but I think they have some good logic on their side. I'm not doing a good job advocating for them. I'll admit that, haha.

Except that you're making up "their logic". Like I said, it's a strawman.