This week, the champion of freedoms for Americans Representative Barney Frank introduced yet another offering pointed at legalizing internet gambling. Last year the honorable Mr. Frank introduced similar legislation, which did not get much traction and did his best to block the implementation of the UIGEA. Unfortunately for Internet gamblers, he struck out with both
This week, the champion of freedoms for Americans Representative Barney Frank introduced yet another offering pointed at legalizing internet gambling. Last year the honorable Mr. Frank introduced similar legislation, which did not get much traction and did his best to block the implementation of the UIGEA. Unfortunately for Internet gamblers, he struck out with both efforts.
Frank’s most recent House Resolution, introduced on Wednesday, is so new that the bill does not yet have a number! Frank said Wednesday at a news conference introducing his bill that he hadn’t spoken to Congressional leadership nor to the Obama administration about the online gambling legislation. Never mind that the U.S. financial system is in the tank, news outlets this week were very interested in this new gambling bill. Frank was asked about his latest piece of legislation on his seemingly daily appearances on Bloomberg, CNN and Fox news. Fox ‘News’ seems to have already made up its mind on Internet gambling, “If running major financial institutions and the auto industry isn’t enough for the Obama administration, a new House bill would put the Treasury Department in charge of Internet gambling.”
View the News Conference video where Frank introduces the Bill here.
The initial offering from The House Financial Services Chairman calls for 5 year licenses for operators and seeks an applicant and any other person associated with the applicant to be a “person of good character, honesty, and integrity.” The bill plans to tax player payouts and makes it illegal for operators who are not licensed to take bets from U.S. citizens.
In all, the bill looks like it is aimed at poker and casino games and operators that are already land-based in the U.S. In fact, sports bettors are completely out-of-luck with this legislation, “No provision of this subchapter shall be construed as authorizing any licensee to operate an Internet gambling facility that knowingly accepts bets or wagers on sporting events from persons located in the United States, except for fantasy or simulation sports games.” It looks like the NFL, fantasy and poker lobbyists are certainly doing their job.
We applaud Barney for his continued efforts but wish he had not thrown sports betting under the bus. In all fairness, his previous efforts had met such staunch opposition form the four major sports leagues, he probably included the above language to create an easier path toward passage. Any laws that establish the Internet to the freedoms that Americans are entitled too are a positive step in the right direction. If nothing else, legalization of Internet gambling would free up the payment gateways.
Still, bettors should not get their hopes up too much as this legislation is far from coming to fruition. Frank indicated that this legislation is still in the early stages and he planned on pushing them through Congress some time before the break in the session scheduled for August.
Once this legislation is actually given a bill number, we will have a way to get involved and contact your representative to let him know to give Barney Frank his/her support. Keep your eye on this space or subscribe to our BLOG feed.
What’s Your Opinion? Add Your Comment Below!
10 Comments
Skeptical1
May 9, 2009, 10:57 pmAny attempt to legalize online gambling especially poker is premature unless the legislation contains some type of vigorious watchdog set up to guarantee that the online poker sites are running an honest game. The incident that occurred with Absolute poker and Ultimate bet were only unique by the fact that they were caught. The software programs that run online poker sites are set up to encourage heavy betting in order to increase the rake for the house. Play most of these site for any length of time and you will quickly find that the suckout factor is many times higher than poker games in a real world casino game.
Asking the sites to police themselves is laughable. All will say the same thing which is how great their software is and cheating of any sort is not possible.It’s a joke.
The OSGA has also been woefully silent on this issue in fact avoiding it like it was the plague. Until or unless some provision is made to periodically check to see if the odds of the these suckout losses that occur are the same on these online sites as they are in real world poker it isNOT the time to legalize online poker or any other gambling at all. All legalization of online will do is give more money to online thieves.
I hope Barny Frank will stop pandering to those who are pushing this legislation and look instead to the hundreds of thousands who will get repeated screwed by a legalized online poker sites rigging their games to increase their daily income.
REPLYadmin
May 11, 2009, 12:59 pmHello Skeptical,
Thanks for the post.
You state :”The software programs that run online poker sites are set up to encourage heavy betting in order to increase the rake for the house. Play most of these site for any length of time and you will quickly find that the suckout factor is many times higher than poker games in a real world casino game.”
We would love to see some examples. If you have some speciffics, please post ’em. By ‘suckout factor’ do you mean the rake?
We certainly do not shy away from legitimate stories and agree with you that Barney is simply following the money here. But, any moves forward to make this industry more legitimate we see as welcome change.
REPLYSkeptical1
May 15, 2009, 6:35 pmI would love to give you the examples you request but there is no way I know to do this. The only way to understand what I am saying is to either play in real money games at the online hold-em sites or watch the play on the real money hold-em tables online although you would be at a disadvantage because unless the losing player shows his hand you will not be able to see how the hand played out.
To explain “suckout factor” you first need the defination of the term suckout as used in online poker games and perhaps in real world poker played at casinos. A “suckout” is when a player is dealt a hand that appears to be a sure winner then loses that hand to a player who hits his winning card on the last card of the river when the odds of that card coming up are exceedingly high like hitting a inside straight. In such a situation the player who has what appears to be a sure winner bets it as such thus increasing the rake as the other player or players call. When I refer to a “suckout factor” I am referring to the number of times that this type of scenerio plays out during my playing time.
Ask your professional players who play hold-em at real world casinos how often they see four of a kind (quads) winning hands on the tables they play. I saw quads winning hands ten days in a row one time including one evening when I saw quad hands come up four times in six hours. I realize that more hands are played per hour online than real world but not that many that quads should come up so often.
I am just using quads hand as an example. Another scenerio is that you need one card to make your hand. It comes up and you bet it aggressively as you should. However you find that the card that made your hand also made another players hand and his of was higher. I understand that this is part of playing poker and I am not complaining because I lost money. What bothers me is how frequent this type of scenerio plays out. Keep in mind that most of the time this type of scenerio plays out the betting and therefore the rake is much higher.
For a online poker sites to have honest games the odds factor on the frequency of occurence of the different poker hands should be the same as if the cards were shuffled and dealt by a human.I do not have the connections to find out from these online sites the ratio of high hands, (a straight or higher), to low hands (three of a kind or less), but I suspect that it is far higher for online games than games played in the real world. Online Hold-em sites put out the illusion that their games are no different than real world casino Hold-em games. However until someone verifies that this is indeed the case people are going to be bilked of their money. Your Organization has the connections and resources to conduct a limited inquiry. Ask the pro poker players their opinions both on and off the record. I have heard that Mike (the Mouth) Matasow has lost big playing online. Why? He does very well playing professionally so he should clean up playing against regular people. Have some of your people track these hold-em games to see for yourself if they are honest.
I have been around computer software people for most of my life, even married one. The one thing they have repeatedly told me is that anything can be programmed into a software program. Until someone outside of the influence of these online sites verifies the fact that these sites are playing a honest game legalization is premature. It’s not too different that putting your money into as slot machine that has a broken payout.
I hope this helps explain and define to some extent my position on Legalization.
REPLYAdministrator
May 17, 2009, 1:50 pmHey Skeptical,
Thanks for the detailed explanation. Some of your realizations may come from that fact that the cards are still dealt using a random numbder generator. The attempt to simulate the way the cards will acutally come out, but the key word is simulate.
We have heard before that the cards are manipulated in a manner to make players bet more, thus increasing the rake for the poker room.
We will take your suggestions and hopefully can get somme pros and casinos involved in this thread.
Stay tuned and thanks for the input.
REPLYSkeptical1
May 22, 2009, 4:46 pmOne last question for you.(Rhetorical)
What is this Random Number Generator you are referring to? Certainly it is not a literal machine that generates random numbers is it?
Rather it is likely that the Random Number Generator is a software program. Software programs can easily be programmed to do virtually anything the user requires including card and hand manipulation in a online hold-em poker game.
In falling back to belief that something called a Random Number Generator is behind the dealing of cards in online card games therefore that aspect of the game must be fair is simply promoting the same false rationale that the online poker sites push, that the Random Number Generator equates with an unfailingly random deal therefore that aspect of online hold-em is fair and honest.
Clearly this is flawed reasoning until all of these sites are checked and it is verified that their games are as honest as they say and the Random Number Generator does indeed generate numbers as random as you believe.
It might be interesting if you with your connections could take an informal survey of the pros who play online to see if playing an online game is the same as playing in a real world live game at a casino. Likely the survey would have to be off the record one since most are sponsored by online sites. However if the pros did say it was different then that would be a de facto admission that there is a fundemental difference in online poker. Next the question would be are these differences designed to scam and cheat? Clearly it should spellout the need for some goverment sponsered oversight on the software to insure the integrity of the online poker games as a needed condition for legalization.
Best of luck on your endeavor.
REPLY