H
hlaoo1980
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Online Poker, Pokkies, & Stupid Aussie Pollies!
In August 2016, after being voted on multiple times in both chambers of the Australian legislature the Interactive gambling Amendment Bill 2016 passed and became law at last. The bloody stupid law basically killed the thriving online poker community in Australia. I was one of them poker players.
Why those stupid pollies tried to kill our Aussie online poker community is completely understandable if one is living in Australia especially in Sydney as long as I do, more than thirty years. The Aussie pollies are in the deep pockets of Gambling Mafia (casinos, Clubs, & Pubs Industry) which wants to kill fledgling online poker industry before it becomes their serious competitor.
I was once a pokkie addict and I managed to rid of my stupid addiction by switching to online poker and along the way making decent living playing online poker without having a permanent job. Four years ago I started on 888 Poker and then full tilt poker and eventually ended with poker stars after they took over Full Tile Poker in 2015 or 2016. I was making decent income playing online poker tournaments and I was very happy.
Then came one day some stupid Aussie Senators who are in the deep pockets of Casino, Club, and Pub industry started raising the primitive idea of prohibiting online poker in Australia. They said they wanted to ban all forms of online gambling without admitting their real target was online poker.
Banning online gambling? These pollies let the gambling industry run massive 20% of all the pokkies in the whole wide world here in Australia and now they are so worried about lousy online gambling? Give me a break, you guys have already made at least 5% of poor Aussies the serious problem gamblers, and now you want to ban online poker. **** me dead, unbvelievable!
The explanation for their hidden target was quite simple. Casinos running live poker rooms definitely want the legitimate online poker sites like Poker Stars banned here. But casinos really do not have that political clouts and deep pockets like clubs and pubs here. So why do clubs and pubs want to ban online poker too?
The not widely known reasons for banning online poker are two popular australian poker leagues NPL and APL, the National Poker League and Australian Poker League respectively. These two amateur poker leagues have been running daily and nightly live poker games in almost every clubs and pubs here for nearly 13 years now.
Quite deceptively NPL and APL are two big business owned privately by nobody knows who. 2005 wsop Champ Joe Hachem was rumoured to be one of the wealthy owners of NPL. Both poker leagues compete against each other aggressively to control the live poker games held in the clubs and pubs.
Their game formats are in the form of Texax Holde’m Poker Tournament and their revenue structure is basically the SAME. Clubs and pubs have to pay them cash fees and also prize money for the tourney winners. Live poker tournaments are at least 4-5 hours long and the normally 50 odd players commonly spend on average 20 to 40 dollars per person on drink and food during the game.
Leagues also made cash out of the players by registration fees (at least a couple of bucks in APL games) for each tourney and additional RE-BUY and ADD-ON fees as high as 50 dollars each game on average. In addition the players have to a buy a so-called DRINK CARD worth at least two dollars and buy at least four drinks and get their card stamped by the club or pub so that he or she can redeem some five to ten thousands more tournament chips from the hosting league.
So to play a so-called FREEROLL APL tourney one has to pay the hosting league from 22 to 52 dollars to play decently. And another 20 to 40 dollars to the club or pub hosting the game. There goes nearly 100 dollars to play a tournament for one player for not more than just 500 dollar first prize one can get if one is reasonably skilled and also extremely lucky too.
Playing supposedly-cheap live poker tournaments even in a club or pub is not that cheap at all compare to the cheap online poker tournaments where the buy-ins are as cheap as a couple of bucks for 200 dollars guaranteed prize pool. And online poker games are available 24/7 and one do not even need to leave one's bedroom.
So banning or the prohibition of online poker is definitely for the financial advantage and survival of both poker leagues and the clubs and pubs hosting the games. And thus the relentless and intense pressure from the clubs and pubs industry on the Australian parliamentarians to ban the online poker.
In August 2016, after being voted on multiple times in both chambers of the Australian legislature the Interactive gambling Amendment Bill 2016 passed and became law at last. The bloody stupid law basically killed the thriving online poker community in Australia. I was one of them poker players.
Why those stupid pollies tried to kill our Aussie online poker community is completely understandable if one is living in Australia especially in Sydney as long as I do, more than thirty years. The Aussie pollies are in the deep pockets of Gambling Mafia (casinos, Clubs, & Pubs Industry) which wants to kill fledgling online poker industry before it becomes their serious competitor.
I was once a pokkie addict and I managed to rid of my stupid addiction by switching to online poker and along the way making decent living playing online poker without having a permanent job. Four years ago I started on 888 Poker and then full tilt poker and eventually ended with poker stars after they took over Full Tile Poker in 2015 or 2016. I was making decent income playing online poker tournaments and I was very happy.
Then came one day some stupid Aussie Senators who are in the deep pockets of Casino, Club, and Pub industry started raising the primitive idea of prohibiting online poker in Australia. They said they wanted to ban all forms of online gambling without admitting their real target was online poker.
Banning online gambling? These pollies let the gambling industry run massive 20% of all the pokkies in the whole wide world here in Australia and now they are so worried about lousy online gambling? Give me a break, you guys have already made at least 5% of poor Aussies the serious problem gamblers, and now you want to ban online poker. **** me dead, unbvelievable!
The explanation for their hidden target was quite simple. Casinos running live poker rooms definitely want the legitimate online poker sites like Poker Stars banned here. But casinos really do not have that political clouts and deep pockets like clubs and pubs here. So why do clubs and pubs want to ban online poker too?
The not widely known reasons for banning online poker are two popular australian poker leagues NPL and APL, the National Poker League and Australian Poker League respectively. These two amateur poker leagues have been running daily and nightly live poker games in almost every clubs and pubs here for nearly 13 years now.
Quite deceptively NPL and APL are two big business owned privately by nobody knows who. 2005 wsop Champ Joe Hachem was rumoured to be one of the wealthy owners of NPL. Both poker leagues compete against each other aggressively to control the live poker games held in the clubs and pubs.
Their game formats are in the form of Texax Holde’m Poker Tournament and their revenue structure is basically the SAME. Clubs and pubs have to pay them cash fees and also prize money for the tourney winners. Live poker tournaments are at least 4-5 hours long and the normally 50 odd players commonly spend on average 20 to 40 dollars per person on drink and food during the game.
Leagues also made cash out of the players by registration fees (at least a couple of bucks in APL games) for each tourney and additional RE-BUY and ADD-ON fees as high as 50 dollars each game on average. In addition the players have to a buy a so-called DRINK CARD worth at least two dollars and buy at least four drinks and get their card stamped by the club or pub so that he or she can redeem some five to ten thousands more tournament chips from the hosting league.
So to play a so-called FREEROLL APL tourney one has to pay the hosting league from 22 to 52 dollars to play decently. And another 20 to 40 dollars to the club or pub hosting the game. There goes nearly 100 dollars to play a tournament for one player for not more than just 500 dollar first prize one can get if one is reasonably skilled and also extremely lucky too.
Playing supposedly-cheap live poker tournaments even in a club or pub is not that cheap at all compare to the cheap online poker tournaments where the buy-ins are as cheap as a couple of bucks for 200 dollars guaranteed prize pool. And online poker games are available 24/7 and one do not even need to leave one's bedroom.
So banning or the prohibition of online poker is definitely for the financial advantage and survival of both poker leagues and the clubs and pubs hosting the games. And thus the relentless and intense pressure from the clubs and pubs industry on the Australian parliamentarians to ban the online poker.