Jesus Defends Online Poker's Legality

As mentioned in The TOKE earlier this week, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Howard Lederer, and Greg Raymer are inside the beltway this week speaking out against three bills that aim to make online poker illegal.  In a press conference yesterday, the three pros, along with Michael Bolcerek of the PPA and Radly Balko of the Cato Institute, detailed key points of their stance:

:: If poker is legal in U.S. casinos, then it should be legal online.

:: Rep. Bob Goodlatte's Internet Gambling Prohibition Act (Goodlatte (R-VA), pictured at right) would essentially censor the Internet "by allowing courts to order ISPs to shut down access to offshore gambling sites." PPA prez Bolcerek compares this censorship to that of the Chinese government, which also blocks Internet content from its people.  Fucking commies.  Balko, a policy analyst for the libertarian Cato Institute, adds that, "Monitoring what American citizens do in their own homes, with their own money and in their own time, just isn't the federal government's responsibility...The government is not our babysitter."

:: Goodlatte's bill would require banks and ISPs to intrude on U.S. resident's privacy.

:: Other games significantly rely on a greater chance element than poker, like horse racing or state lotteries, can be played legally online. Poker is a much more skilled game. As Jesus said yesterday, "Once you sit down at that table, you're all equal."

:: The vast majority of the American public (ranging from 75% to 85%, depending on the poll) want online poker to be legal.

While all issues raised by the opposition group are potent, the point on public polling may prove most compelling, as policymakers tend to listen to their people.  The public's desire for legalized online poker may push the Fed to make the right call in the end: regulate it, tax it, and reap the financial benefits.

Comments

[editorial/janitorial note]

this is government overreaching and intrusion at its best. Arguments that rely on claims that online poker leads to societal ills and the possibility of underage gamblers fail to recognize that so many things we Americans love to do and are FREE to do also have potential downsides ...that although they may exist they do not give the government the right to interfere unnecessarily in our lives. Consider alcohol...imagine if we sat there and considered all the downsides of alcohol's legality... bankruptcy, divorce, child abuse, infidelity, car accidents/deaths, fights, liver cancer, etc..all things that can arguably be atteibuted to the abuse of alcohol in certain instances ..does that give the government the right to abolish its use when the majority of americans choose to drink responsibly? No! It does give them the right, at least as interpreted by the Supreme Court under the commerce clause, to regulate such things...but not to abolish it outright.

[JackOff]

this is all JACK AbramOFF's fault.