Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Prohibition in Our Time...
Been taking the last few days to digest what all has happened and regretting that I didn't have money on a foreign exchange to short PartyGaming stock all the way down.
While this is certainly a devastating blow to poker in general, I take some solace in the fact that the effects of capitalism are a strong argument against this legislation. $12 billion industries don't simply go away and someone in government is going to be smart enough to realize this and figure out how they want to regulate it. At least that's my opinion. Time being, there are certainly some opportunities for saavy business people as a result of this, and hopefully I become saavy in the next few weeks and figure out how to profit from this.
I find myself not among the throng of people who think the Republican party is the force behind this and therefore the embodiment of evil. But it does represent one of the reasons why I never affiliated myself with one party or the other. Sen. Frist certainly used his position to his advantage in attaching the internet gambling legislation with the port security bill to ensure its passage. As a result, I can only hope that people seeing this display of politics will become more active, and by active I don't mean simply shouting down the Republican party for "banning" poker. This is simply the way the game gets played, internet poker got trapped and check-raised on the river holding the second nuts. For as much responsibility as those who brought the legislation forward bear, so too does the poker community for not realizing what could happen and being more of an instrument against it.
I, for one, will happily at this point take bets that a "pro" will win the main event of the World Series again...
While this is certainly a devastating blow to poker in general, I take some solace in the fact that the effects of capitalism are a strong argument against this legislation. $12 billion industries don't simply go away and someone in government is going to be smart enough to realize this and figure out how they want to regulate it. At least that's my opinion. Time being, there are certainly some opportunities for saavy business people as a result of this, and hopefully I become saavy in the next few weeks and figure out how to profit from this.
I find myself not among the throng of people who think the Republican party is the force behind this and therefore the embodiment of evil. But it does represent one of the reasons why I never affiliated myself with one party or the other. Sen. Frist certainly used his position to his advantage in attaching the internet gambling legislation with the port security bill to ensure its passage. As a result, I can only hope that people seeing this display of politics will become more active, and by active I don't mean simply shouting down the Republican party for "banning" poker. This is simply the way the game gets played, internet poker got trapped and check-raised on the river holding the second nuts. For as much responsibility as those who brought the legislation forward bear, so too does the poker community for not realizing what could happen and being more of an instrument against it.
I, for one, will happily at this point take bets that a "pro" will win the main event of the World Series again...
