^ Yea. What he said.

+1

+1.

I agree completely. I think people are missing my point because it seems like I am anti-poker. All I am saying/said is that we have to recognize the inherent bad associated with Ipoker. That is all. I think BY FAR the best way to help alleviate the problem of problem gambling is through regulation. Otherwise we just have people who are gambling regardless of the legality and also not receiving the help needed.

First off, I'm now officially a Vet so there are no worries about rank. I don't have a problem with you thinking people are lazy, stupid, unamerican, whatever else you can come up with. I have a problem with you waving around your uniform as if it gives you some kind of moral high ground.

If you want to come on an internet forum and share your opinion, fine feel free. If you want to be a dick about it, no worries doesn't bother me a bit. If you want to be an arrogant, egotistical bastard while at the same time proclaiming "I've served my country blah blah blah" you're now pissing me off. Your service has absolutely no bearing to this discussion. The fact that you mentioned it in the context that you did only reinforces the stereotype that military members are arrogant pricks who think they are better than everyone else.

It's very nice that many people in this country think the men and women who serve are special. It's great that many people look up to you and I. The fact that you seem to expect people to think you are special and should be looked up to is another thing entirely.

Please stop posting. Please stop embarrassing yourself.


You could not be more right that people on these forums need to become more active, but I don't think you could be more arrogant. The kind of vanity that is reeking out of your posts is really an issue I think you need to work out for yourself ie. "I served this country and you did not"

I understand the responsibilities we face and so do many, but you need to stop this egotistical preaching.

What I don't get is why the PPA and many are looking backwards. It's over boys. Offshore internet gaming is over. It's not coming back. Wouldn't it be more practical to lose this thinking and get on with what it takes to get online poker on US soil?

Why is offshore gambling gone? Even if prohibition were lifted, and regulation began in this country, there would be sites who did not receive licenses that would still offer Ipoker and online gambling. Offshore gambling will never cease. Even today, we can play on the Merge network. Why is Merge any different than Tilt or Stars?

Except that a regulatory bill could contain a statute that would make it illegal for individuals to play on these offshore sites.

Offshore gambling is for all intents and purposes is gone anyways.

^

Why? Is the Merge Network different than Stars or Tilt? I do not play on Merge and am just wondering why you think its dead. Merge is available so its not dead.

I just feel like another site will become the prominent site until the DOJ takes it out. And then the cycle will replicate.

You are right in that another site (Merge or whatever) will fill in, but have you been to a cardroom lately? Every person I've spoken to fish or otherwise sees this as the nail in the coffin. What percentage of the former U.S playerpool is going to be willing to put money on Merge? I doubt I will.

Ipoker offshore isn't dead yet, technically, but I doubt it will last much longer. It will become a mere fraction of what it was on April 14 and more seizures are probably looming for the future.

You can't be ****ing serious? 389 people in the study and 31 gambled online. 14 of them having gambling withing the past week. If your gonna post a study at least do one with a decent sample size or that is more up to date.

You disgust me and are a disgrace to the POS **** country. Get off your pedestoll clown. What has the country ever done fore me? Don't go off on some stupid BS good ole boy speech about giving me freedom and protecting me because thats just a lie. So again I ask you what specifically has this government done for me. They took away 8 years of your life and I bet you have nothing to show for it. What have you done since 2006? Currently your trolling around bragging about how your better than us for because you served. Whoopty ****ing doo !!!!

Just because you serve in the military doesn't mean your doing anything to further support our "freedoms" and what freedoms might you be referring to? My freedom to play online poker because I no longer have that.

and as we say here at 2+2....GTFO

+1

For goodness sake when will the anti gamblers stop using this stupid study to discuss online gambling? FYI this was a self selecting sample of people filling in a form in a waiting room using subsidised medical services in 2002. There were a grand total of 32 people who had ever gambed online in that sample - 32!

They used the SOGS methodology that has been dropped by many as showing false positives and focussed only on those too poor to pay for their own healthcare.

Meanwhile serious research like the UK's Gambling Prevalence Survey using a proper sample and thousands of respondents has found no increase in problem gambling between 1999 and 2011 despite the rise in online gambling and many more fixed odds betting terminals on the high street.

Don't pretend online gambling creates addicts, it does not. In 2002 addicts were more likely to seek out the new source of gambling, they were early adopters, what a surprise. There is no trebling of addicts because gambling is on the internet. There is zero increase and this "survey" was always a crock.

You little fibber you.

The UK surveys show - unsurprisingly - that harder gambling options like (in order) spread betting, betting exchanges, casino gambling have fewer participants and a higher PROPORTION of problem gamblers. This is due to fewer casual punters not a higher incidence. In many cases the small number of problem gamblers are counted n all these categories....because they have a problem.

The UK survey shows no increase in problem gambling from 1999 to 2011, which would be when interet gambling happened.

No, you are misrepresenting "facts". In 2002 when very few gambled online a higher proportion who sought that outlet had "problems" (using a sample needing subsidised dentistry who filled out forms in a waiting room where not one person said they did not gamble) and using a methodology (SOGS) that is known to over estimate problems. There has been no increase in problem gambling since it went online in any general population survey, not once, ever. You are abusing stats by pretending the proportion of active participants (with a tiny sample) compares to the general population. It does not. You have 3 levels of selection in this survey - lack of money, choosing to fill in a gambling questionaire, selecting just online gamblers in 2002 and then generalising from 32 people with bad teeth.

Nope I am telling the truth. Not sure where you got your information since you didnt cite anything. Here is the survey I looked at. I am done arguing in this thread with everyone. If you wish to continue, which I am more than happy to do, you can PM me.

I do want to reiterate that I do want online poker to be legalized. I was just simply saying that addictive gambling is a problem that we in the poker community like to ignore/pretend it doesnt affect us. Once again, my caveat (which I should have said originally) is that I am talking about internet gambling in general, not Ipoker exclusively. If you want to protest saying Ipoker is not as addictive, I am not going to argue. However, since the federal government views them as 1 in the same, I think we should view them as one in the same.

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk...vey%202010.pdf

Thanks Richas. +1

As a result of the UK study many reputable psychologists who previously expressed "worry" that internet gambling would increase problem gambling are now embracing a very different principle: certain people develop problem gambling as a result of individual psychological factors; gambling by itself does not cause people to become problem gamblers.

Which isn't to say that there should not be concern, nor that protections that recognize and seek to prevent the harm problem gamblers cause to themselves and others should not be implemented.

Just that banning one or all forms of gambling does not further the goal of reducing or preventing problem gambling.

Skallagrim

The bank fraud and money laundering charges are grave charges. The site owners would likely have a hard time beating the bank fraud charges if the DOJ intended to bring them to trial. The money laundering charge relates to the gambling charges, and lives or dies with them.

ASDFGHJK, why the **** would you make this assumption in the land of "innocent until proven guilty?"

That said, it was clear from the context in which I made the statement that "honest and ethical service providers" meant that the sites had been honest and ethical in their treatment of their customers, which they have been.



I doubt that you care, but this is a massive logic fail. I may explain further when i stop giggling uncontrollably at how completely nonsensical this claim is.

I don't believe I will attempt to argue with either statistics you completely made up or the populist fallacy you engage in here. Your logic fail to sentence ratio is one of the highest I have ever seen on 2+2.

Players have a legitimate grievance against a government that needs to be disparaged a lot more than it is.

You can't possibly know this; it is just an assumption you made in the face of reams of contrary evidence. This forum is full of people asking what they can do to help, finding out, and then doing it. 70,000 PPA members have written Congress since Black Friday. You call that doing nothing? Try seeking out evidence rather than making **** up.

Again, try seeking out evidence rather than making **** up. See above.

Your assumption is wrong and your moral superiority is misplaced. Those "lazy degenerates" fall mostly into one of two categories: 1. recreational players who have jobs and who play as a hobby, and who, by definition, are not, therefore, either lazy or degenerate, and 2. professional players who, if successful, can neither be lazy nor degenerate.

Really, this is what happens when you argue from stereotypes rather than, hmm, you know, facts and evidence. You pile faulty conclusions on top of baseless assumptions and wind up speaking 100% nonsense.

Perhaps convincing the federal government that they are in fact different might also be an option?

Skallagrim

Read the series of surveys like I have then.

Your claim is that more people who engage in the "hardest" gambling activities like spread betting equates to an increase (trebling) of problem gambling. It does not show this. The surveys show that the gambling activities used by the fewest people have a higher proportion of problem gamblers. Problem gamblers are early adopters and use all the outlets available - WOW!

What you seem to have missed is that problem gambling is less than a quarter of problem drinkers and that there has been no increase in problem gambling between 1999 and 2011. Indeed fewer bet on the lottery in the UK now than in 1999 despite that lottery being online now when it was not in 1999.

Wow this thread went downhill fast after this post. Probably because this should have been /thread.

But just to add my 2¢, the DOJ don't really care about problem gamblers or people playing a game for money on the internet. What they do care about (and rightly so) are terrorist and criminal organizations having ways to launder and move money. They care that such organizations can and will set up similar companies if it is perceived that the DOJ turns a blind eye because poker is a skill game.

I wish UIGEA wasn't passed and I wish the DOJ didn't go after the sites and processors and I wish the sites didn't have to commit crimes (allegedly) to move our money but Right or wrong FTP/PS/UB/AP are gone from the US market and there not coming back. Both the sites and US players benefited while those sites served the US but now their gone and all the whining in the world isn't going to matter.

There's simply no point in writing the DOJ or Congress and bitching about the loosing these sites. No one is going to care that these sites are gone esp. now that the DOJ has indicted them and rightly or wrongly they're are now seen as a criminal enterprises.

Congress isn't going to overturn UIGEA and say "ok guys go do what you want it's a free for all" If Congress addresses the issue at all it will be to license/regulate online poker or maybe allow states to regulate it and allow interstate play. We need to focus on regulation and forget about trying to convince lawmakers and the public that some giant miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated on poker player and poker sites. Lets focus on the future by getting a poker bill passed and leave these now non-us serving sites in the past.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect:

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

Bin Laden is a confirmed low limit grinder . Ayman al-zawahiri is a big time SNG fish. I also heard Al Qaeda moves a lot of koran's on ebay.......

You are right superleeds. The global war on terror demands that we shut down the internet and stop all foreign commerce with countries who have harbored AQ affiliates in the past. The terrorists use the internet to communicate therefore we must shut the internet down. Private vehicles should also be banned because they consume gas which comes from the middle east where confirmed terrorists still reside while they plot against the U.S. All air travel should also be banned because terrorists may decide to use airplanes as weapons again.

These measures are the only way to make us safe from the terrorist threat. God bless America.

I'd call that a pretty big problem. How are we supposed to fight for regulation if we are fighting each other?

This thread has featured a guest star appearance by "banonlinepoker" (guess what he had to say), another by some fool wrapped so tightly in the American flag he blurted out that people who haven't served in the Armed Forces should leave the country, and a bunch of utter nonsense about terrorists.

Is it any surprise we aren't all getting along?

It's not hard.

Put banonlinepoker on ignore. I've had him there for a long time.

If someone else says or does something that rattles you, and responding to it will not advance any conversation or discussion, then just ignore it.

The "terrorism" part came from the original post. The aide with whom I spoke used that exact word. Like it or not, some people who oppose regulation really believe that online poker is a haven for terrorists to launder money. That is the perception that we are dealing with, realistic or not.