And more importantly will PT3 and HEM be able to keep up with all of the different HH formats? I needs my records!

I was reading the Times this morning and they had an opinion piece on the fight over control of payment methods for social gaming. Part of the piece was that Disney(which owns MGM) bought Playdom. Nothing like hooking children on Disney games where you buy things to play with and transitioning them to your gambling sites with familiar look and feel is there?

You'd think so, but plenty of droolers will dump cash on stupid stuff yet refuse to spend a dime on actual gambling.

I used to be into entering online sweepstakes for a short while (huge beat), and there was a forum where someone was talking about the HGTV Dream Home sweepstakes where you win a $1M-ish house. You could only do 1 online entry a day, but unlimited entries via postcard. This crazy lady was sending in thousands of postcard entries, each costing her something like 25c in postage. Plenty of other sweepstakes people do similar.

I did some simple math and explained that buying lottery tickets was a far better use of her postage money, or better yet just get the money she was going to spend on postage and put it in a slot machine as those have much higher payout percentages.

The response was along the lines of "but that's gambling and gambling's immoral!" by the lady who was spending more than she could probably afford on $0.25 postcard stamps to "buy" entries into a super longshot sweepstakes.

Cliffs: droolers won't necessarily line up to fund online poker accounts because many of them feel gambling is wrong/immoral/bad

Harrah's is now spending money advertising their online room(s?) via various media in the US: http://casinonewsauthority.com/harra...tizens/132030/

I'm guessing within the next few months we'll start to see who the players in this game will be. I still don't expect it will include google or facebook.

I like the author's optimism (and Harrah's):

It's sad that so much of this thread degenerated into a discussion of where lines should be drawn in terms of legality. The Harm Principle is all that should ever be needed to regulate commerce or relationships between people, and any so-called libertarian ought to accept it at face value.

"That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant." -J.S. Mill.

I think all rational actors accept this as individuals, and anyone who does not accept the logic of it, is not a rational actor and doesn't need to be dealt with seriously; in fact, cannot be dealt with seriously.

The obvious extrapolation from that is that every entity or person attempting to extort individuals for participation in activities which supposedly harm themselves is a member of a collective mafia, participating in a criminal racket; including, but not limited to, the senators, congressmen and governments who want to sell us our liberty back with a 20% rake.

The next extrapolation is that any collusion between a corporate gaming house and one of these organized mafias is, by definition, contrary to the principle of individual liberty; and that compliance with obtuse regulations (e.g. Google's compliance with China's search policies; RIM's forthcoming compliance with Saudi and UAE demands on encryption, PokerStars compliance with French absurdism vis-a-vis poker) is, to the extent that it protects the company in question, equally injurious to the liberties and expectations of fairness on the part of its users.

So in this sense, only companies which refuse to be licensed or legal are, really, honest and fair with their users. Because at least they aren't bending over for these phony, hypocritical pursed-lipped sons of b*tches and taking it in the ***, only to send us the bill at the end of the day.

Agree totally as a matter of philosophy jstrike.

But as a practical matter, that song does keep ringing in my ears ("Breakin' rocks in the hot sun ....").

Skallagrim

sequestration == force == war == politics == economics.
los desaparecidos son los presos politicos son los secuestrados son los esclavos.

Law is fiat paper issued by sovereignty, which has been historically rooted in land claims, I don't think you'll disagree. What's silly is that players and entrepreneurs are forced to run all over the world looking for shelter under some local mafia's land-based umbrella, and pay some miserable vig to the local jefe, while corporations like Google or Harrah's are, by any historical yardstick, already sovereign and autonomous entities powerful enough to rewrite local laws at their whim.

Sovereignty is where it's at. You can make all the money in the world; you'll never be free unless you can claim sovereignty. The mistake the libertarian anarchists of past generations made was that they thought you had to have a piece of land to do it. Like the guys who started the Republic of Minerva, or Sealand, or Hemingway's crazy brother.

Really though, all you should need is a loose nuke or a really good lawyer

Here is a little history of Google's acquisitions, to put this in perspective.

i lol'ed

Think of all the cutesy things they can do with their logo once they replace "Google" with "Doomswitch" on their search page.

http://www.swoopo.com/

Could be worth it right

I'd trade rake for text ads in a heartbeat. Add in the new players and it's a win win situation.

Btw, lol @ worrying about your real name being out there, like you can't create multiple facebook accounts. Not to mention you can alter your name as you like. Not only would it not expose your real name, regs could not even keep notes on you.