The Anti-Gambling Crusade and the Demarcation of Poker

In the wake of the House of Representatives' passage of HR 4411 and the arrest of BETonSPORTS CEO David Carruthers at a Texas airport, it's been action/reaction time in the online poker world. We mentioned previously how the BoS arrest quickly caused a rapid fluctuation in stock prices of online gambling firms traded publicly on the British market; we also mentioned that a couple of smaller players have decided that --- at this time --- the marginal pursuit of U.S. customers just isn't worth the hassle.

Both of these things are newsworthy, but both are also automatic, reactive steps that were easy to foresee. But what comes next? After all, it's the $64,000 question, all over again.

Whether or not HR 4411 or a similar bill passes in this sesssion or the next one isn't really the point. Congress has fired a shot over the bow, as it were, and the next step is going to be up to the online entities themselves. Yes, they're lobbying hard in the Senate (where the real power lies), but lobbying hard and achieving success are two different things. I wish them well, but I won't take it on faith that they will.

In addition to this U.S. legislative push, what you're likely to see are two distinct countermeasures. One is the ongoing effort by all non-British gambling concerns to strike down the U.S.'s legislative attempts in avenues such as the WTO, and to remain defiant if the U.S. fails to comply with any pro-gambling WTO ruling. It'll be Party and Stars and the top few sites that determine how heavily the battle against U.S. legislation will be waged, although the smaller sites may be instrumental in enabling countermeasures that would render any U.S. ban useless. It's not incomprehensible that, in the wake of any successfully enacted legislations, these sites and others attempted to seize the moral high ground, vis-a-vis the expected WTO rulings. Some sites could be very active in protecting their U.S. market shares by actively promoting workarounds to any Internet "blocking" protocols that were put in place. Whether through creative banking alternatives or third-party ISP-block relays, these sites (if pressured) will likely feel entitled to find a way. In a way, it would then be seen as the laundering of money to the legislators responsible for this idiocy, making it a self-fulfilling truism of the worst sort.

The second major tack will be a renewed push of poker as a game of skill, rather than one primarily of chance. Because of this, you'll see a growing separation between poker and other online games, whether it's blackjack, slots or whatever. Of the few smaller sites that have now closed their doors to U.S. players, almost all them were sportsbooks first, online poker as an afterthought. We can pity their removal from the market, but they won't have much of an effect.

As always, stay tuned. The battle lines are still being drawn.