For the second straight year, April 15 was the day the State of Indiana became marginally richer and I became significantly poorer. At the end of my junior year of college, $150 is quite the check to be sending away after a year of work failed to correctly appropriate my state tax liability. But April 15, 2011 was more interesting than any other tax day I have previously experienced – it was the day three poker giants were shut down. The sun rose on two of my best friends and, at least for one, his primary source of income was suddenly shut down by the Federal government. I do not buy into conspiracy theories or believe the government, at any point in history, has acted vengefully towards the citizens of this great nation. However, I was still shocked to hear that Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker were almost simultaneously evicted from their dot-com domain names. Sure the sites had been acting on the fringe of legality for years, including before the 2006 passing of the now-much-more-controversial-than-ever before Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
Before I indulge into the legality of what happened that morning, I think it is important to step back and few the game of online poker from a completely subjective viewpoint. I have never played online poker but feel somewhat capable of forming an opinion on it because I have been around it so regularly for nearly four years. I have seen close friend’s experience the wins and loses, the ups and downs, and the flops and the turns (and even a broken computer monitor or two). My friends who play are far from degenerate gamblers, but profit-maximizing and extremely focused individuals. I do not begin to say that I have the patience or determination to play the number of hands and tables for the number of hours two of my roommates do at least six days a week.
Online poker is not prostitution or drug dealing. Certainly it has its excesses and aspects of greed, but so does our country’s capitalist system! Bernard Madoff proved to us all that even a respectable businessman can turn a great thing into something awful. Poker players can become addicted, but alcohol is legal despite the relative harm alcoholism can cause to individuals and families and it is entirely legal. My friends who play are easy to classify as ‘addicted’ from an outside perspective because of the hours they log online. But my friends are not addicted and I would be the first to defend them or any other online poker play that is unfairly classified as something they are not.
Yet to think the Federal government, so quickly and so fervently, could shut off the source of income for millions of Americans is unconscionable to me. I feel awful for my friends that play and they are in a comfortable position as college students still partially financially supported by their families. As bad as it might be for them, the stories they tell of friends that have children, homes, wives, bills, college tuition payments, car payments, and other normal expenses that will soon go unmet because of the government’s actions are terrifying. I never knew how to react when one of my parents was laid off, but I knew that they were still competitively positioned in their industry to find a job, provide value to an organization, and earn a competitive salary. Where do these poker players go?
My friends have told me stories of players with law degrees that simply saw more earning potential in the online poker industry. These individuals might have valuable skills, but could just as easily be unfairly characterized with a stigma because they did not follow a ‘traditional’ path into the legal industry. These poker players saw an opportunity and pursued it, yet now the government has deemed their rational decision to be incorrect as they block any earned income and disallow any future earnings – for the time being.
While I have not played poker, but am still knowledgeable with the game; I am similarly not a lawyer, yet have taken the time to understand why the Federal government took the action they did. I do not think online poker is gone for good in this country and I can support that both through academia’s legal opinions and through American history and the spirit of its people.
I. Nelson Rose, one of America’s preeminent scholars on the legality of gambling, posed the simple parallel question “did Prohibition end drinking?” Not only did Prohibition not end drinking and arguably created modern organized crime, but Rose points out that when “people want something and it is illegal, organizations will arise to fill the demand.” By nature, humans are crafty beings and will always look for an opportunity to exploit and the American Dream is centered around the eventually realization of wealth. So how could any rational lawmaker ever truly believe that these 13 indictments will abolish internet poker for good? “Like a raid by Elliot Ness on breweries and speakeasies during Prohibition, there are now wonderful opportunities for new operators to fill the vacuum,” Rose says. Maybe it will not be Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, or Absolute Poker – but online gambling and specifically poker, will return to this country.
Amid the grim outlook though, how will internet poker return the computer of my roommates and so many other millions of Americans?
