OzExorcist
Broomcorn's uncle
Bronze Level
Possibly because it's meant to be the government's job to do what's right for the country, not just what's popular. For example, dropping all tax rates to 0% would be pretty popular, I imagine, but it'd also be a terrible idea.
Plus in this case I really don't think a broad "social survey" would have told them very much. They'd have found some people strongly in favour of online poker, some people strongly against it, and the vast vast VAST majority of people who just don't care.
They did conduct a Senate inquiry on the issue earlier in the year where they called for submissions from the public. Myself, Zorba and many other players, as well as pro- and anti-online poker groups, made submissions. They may still be the basis of the law being changed in the future, I guess we'll wait and see.
I don't really see how that would make a difference... but besides that poker will never be an Olympic sport. For all sorts of reasons, but primarily:
1: poker isn't a sport, and
2: the IOC is staunchly anti-gambling
sunirico
Visionary
Silver Level
It's called a nanny state for this reason. The state deems it knows better regardless of whether it is popular or not, citizens are not considered capable of thinking for themselves so the responsibility falls to the government to make their choices for them.
D
denis77782m
Enthusiast
Silver Level
N
n0stalgia
Rising Star
Bronze Level
In Australia it is all about monopolies. Our government works for the rich.
They disallow us to play online poker at our free will which is controlled and less of a gamble. Yet they do allow us to gamble when the companies have the edge for example pokie machines, sport betting, casinos and all different types of racing.
As an Australian online poker player I personally think its disgusting that by removing online poker they have taken something away from alot of people for no apparent reason other than they can not work out how to get taxes from it. We must be living under medievil times where people needed to be told what to do...
Rant over but forever frustrated!
They disallow us to play online poker at our free will which is controlled and less of a gamble. Yet they do allow us to gamble when the companies have the edge for example pokie machines, sport betting, casinos and all different types of racing.
As an Australian online poker player I personally think its disgusting that by removing online poker they have taken something away from alot of people for no apparent reason other than they can not work out how to get taxes from it. We must be living under medievil times where people needed to be told what to do...
Rant over but forever frustrated!
OzExorcist
Broomcorn's uncle
Bronze Level
I know we as poker players don't like to think to hard about this, because many poker players like to consider themselves as separate from or somehow better than "ordinary gamblers".
But for there to be winners at poker (online or otherwise) by definition there have to be even more losers. Poker is gambling, gambling addiction is very real, it's hurt a lot of people over the years and it will continue to do so.
It's disingenuous to say things like this, to the effect of "nobody every got hurt from a little online poker". It's also a poor approach to take when you're trying to get the game legalised, because you can be certain the issue of problem gambling is going to come up, and anyone arguing for legalising the game needs to have a very good answer for how to handle it.
Erm... no. Just no. Especially when we're talking about online poker because there's always a new tournament starting. People who have a problem and want to chase their losses can do it in either cash game or tournaments. One isn't better or worse for problem gambling than the other.
It's not. I don't believe any of the major poker sites who also offer casino games overseas did so in Australia, because online casino games are very definitely banned here. Also sites have generally had no issue blocking other casino games from countries where poker is legal but other casino games are not. So it seems unlikely that we've banned poker just because the government thought it was inevitable the same sites would also insist on offering other casino games.
Where there is some crossover is companies that offer poker and sports betting. In those cases (betfair is the first and biggest one that comes to mind, Bet365 is another), the companies typically chose to offer sports betting (which is 100% legal, regulated, etc here) and block Australians from playing poker.
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BigGreg
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Online poker experience
Following the closure of pokerstars I registered and played with IgnitionPoker and have had no end of problems. My account with $300 has been frozen for a couple of months now and they simply do not reply to emails. My friend had a better experience - he was able to withdraw some money from his account but took him around six weeks of constant effort and he had to pay some substantial withdrawal fees. Their business model seems to be to try and make you give up and keep your money.
It is all well and good to be able to play poker online but you need to be able to withdraw your money when you want to.
Much better to use Tiger Gaming in my experience. Customer Service is very prompt and withdrawals are free. I use the site every day and quite happy with it.
Avoid the IgnitionPoker blackhole!
Following the closure of pokerstars I registered and played with IgnitionPoker and have had no end of problems. My account with $300 has been frozen for a couple of months now and they simply do not reply to emails. My friend had a better experience - he was able to withdraw some money from his account but took him around six weeks of constant effort and he had to pay some substantial withdrawal fees. Their business model seems to be to try and make you give up and keep your money.
It is all well and good to be able to play poker online but you need to be able to withdraw your money when you want to.
Much better to use Tiger Gaming in my experience. Customer Service is very prompt and withdrawals are free. I use the site every day and quite happy with it.
Avoid the IgnitionPoker blackhole!
OzExorcist
Broomcorn's uncle
Bronze Level
