Federal prosecutors freeze accounts of people who play poker online. | Hacker News Reader

Federal prosecutors freeze accounts of people who play poker online.

cnbc.com

29 pointsvaksel17 comments

When I think of dumb laws, the US laws against internet gambling (especially poker) are high on that list.

I have never played online poker, but if stupid people want to flush their money down the e-toilet I really see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to. We've already got this entirely legal online-based system called Wall Street where the average guy can place bets and lose tons of cash, might as well let them do it with poker.

especially considering we have Las Vegas where its legal

I'm not sure you understand how poker works. It is not negative expectation gambling like all casino games. A skillful player has a positive expectation over time, and will be profitable.

You're playing against other people, not against the casino. So, yes, some people will lose their money, but the more skillful players will win it.

I'm fully aware of how poker works, and the majority of people playing the game lose money.

You've got a distinct minority of people (I'd guess < 10%) who win the money from the stupid poker players. Since I am one of those stupid people I've decided not to pay the incomes of the advanced and more skillful poker players.

SharkScope, which tracks the results of all the major poker sites' Sit-n-Gos--which are basically short tournaments--says about a third--33%--are winners.

That doesn't include cash games, which probably has a lower win rate than 33%, but likely not as low as 10%.

The cash game figure is around 17% from what I've seen on 2+2

> You're playing against other people, not against the casino.

You're playing against other people's bots, not against other people.

As someone who spent about 18 months building a No Limit Hold'em bot, I can safely tell you that the "bot problem" is not as big of a problem as it might seem like it would be.

Not only do you have to program a winning strategy--which is very hard--but you have to not get caught--which is also very hard.

Both 'very hard' problems seem best solvable by a tiny bit of collusion with the site operators: run the bots as shills, disproportionately pair them against weak-player-heavy tables, drag just a little on enforcement of bot-detection mechanisms.

I know, I know: "if the operator is dishonest there are easier ways to cheat". But this looser collaboration between bot-operators and site-operators is easier to disguise, or to compartmentalize. It doesn't require dishonest software, for example.

It might even be easier for perpetrators to rationalize. ("These players are dumping their money anyway; it might as well be to my confederates' bots. Bot-training is a skill, too!")

"I really see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to"

I believe these laws are due mainly to the casino lobby.

The funny thing is that the CNBC article does much more damage to online poker than the actual prosecution. The sites are very good at finding ways to get payments to players and have managed to circumvent most attempts in the past.

Online poker depends on new, bad players depositing money. Beginners are like plankton in the ocean--kill them and you kill everything up the food chain. When the media makes a big hooplah like "OMG people can't deposit their winnings" it spreads like wildfire by word of mouth at weekly poker games and before you know it, sign up rates take a major dip. In the long run, that's what going to kill online poker, not the legislation itself.

What's surprising to me is that the government is actually demonstrating competence by doing this. Gambling is against the law. The executive's job is to enforce the law. That they hadn't clued in or figured out a way to handle this problem before is a "happy" accident. Similar accidents, less happy, got us stuff like GITMO and black sites.

(Clearly, we should fix the law here.)

Actually, gambling itself is generally not against the law. Anti-gambling laws usually target businesses that derive profits from gambling, not the gamblers themselves.

Is there a particular reason you didn't write out payments?

80 char limit, so I had to edit the title a number of times to make it fit

A suggestion for another time: call the guys 'Feds'.

Further headline-style compression can drop connector words:

Feds tell banks: freeze poker payments

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