VIP_TARIFF
Rock Star
Silver Level
The simple fact is that poker-players bring good income, but the state has nothing to do with it. There are no taxes on poker, but they do not know the direction how much poker players lose money. We in Russia are also struggling with online poker, but we have many mirrors of party sites poker, pokerstars, and therefore many Russian players play. Online poker cannot be overcome
antonis32123
Legend
Loyaler
Governments want to extract a part of big online poker operators' annual revenue , so they impose big taxes on players and demand lots of money to legalise poker rooms.
They (politicians) give domestical ''gamble'' licences to their fellow bussinessmen who support them financially , excluding the rest for stupid reasons .
No law imposed by states on poker/gambling is for the players' benefit or protection unfortunatelly , everything they decide makes a player's game and life harder .
You have no freedom to spend your money on sth good that you desire/enjoy , that is unacceptable
They (politicians) give domestical ''gamble'' licences to their fellow bussinessmen who support them financially , excluding the rest for stupid reasons .
No law imposed by states on poker/gambling is for the players' benefit or protection unfortunatelly , everything they decide makes a player's game and life harder .
You have no freedom to spend your money on sth good that you desire/enjoy , that is unacceptable
Marctowin
Enthusiast
Silver Level
The government of different countries does not want to lose profit in a personal pocket. New corrupt laws are being introduced. This is displayed on online players. We will always exist and play regardless of the laws.
D
Dallas4life
Enthusiast
Silver Level
i think they should just allow people to gamble if they want to spend their money who cares
thats messed up on how people do things like that or how sites do that
regulateing any site is difficult its not an easy job
i really dont see that happening but yes we should have better things on some of these sites
Last edited by a moderator:
drunkalien
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Agreed. It all does go down to greed as well. As you said it, the online business
has to compete and not overthrow the local legal gambling activities as if you take
took big a bite out of someone's pie, too suddenly... the guy who used to own the pie
is going to fight you to take it back. The short rise and fall of online poker a few years
ago definitely took too big a bite too quickly and the regulators are bashing the online industry for it. I offer no solution, but to keep an eye on the economic implications
that will come back to nip you in the bud eventually must be observed.
K
kelvin22
Rock Star
Silver Level
I believe it's due to the lack of transparency from online poker companies, and the fact that more money go OUT than INTO a country's economy (aka the gov's pockets), when it comes to online gaming of any kind.
Gaming companies generally run their main operation from fiscal paradises (countries where taxes are very low), meaning that whatever money a player deposits from a certain country, so they can play, it actually goes there, and whether it's at a bigger or lower scale, the overall economy of a country actually suffers because of that, because once the money is out of the country, it's not likely to come back. Gambling generates revenue for way less than 1% of the total players, and the overall total that gambling would bring into a country's economy, is far less than the overall total that is lost. The government uses your money even if it's not technically in their pockets, and you're practically cutting them short when you gamble online, no matter how little. Plus, because of the high taxes a government imposes on gambling revenues, winning players may very well chose to keep their winnings in any other country except their own... which is even a bigger blow for the government. Hell, people who make a lot of money (not from gambling) use that practice to get out of paying taxes, every day. Not to mention, it is the government's opinion, that the population should dedicate their free time to constructive and productive things, rather than gambling (aka the american way), in order to grow as a society, which is actually not so wrong, but in the end, it's all about the money. It will be hard to completely ban online gambling from a country, so the governments use threats in order to make excuses for new taxes. They don't give a shit about you gambling online. All they care about... is control and how to get their piece...
Last edited:
finaltable1
Legend
Loyaler
What is the difference for a server computer between 10K player freeroll tournament and 5K player tournament with 100K grtd prize pool? There is no difference. In both cases server will consume 1-2 KiloWatts of energy and will download/upload several gygabytes of traffic.
Then, why the freeroll is free, but in case of 100K tourney, the poker room earns minimum 10K profit?
Isn't it obvious that the fair way is to pay monthly fee and play tournaments with no rake? $10K profit during 7 hours of 100K tournament? Seriously? You can hire 30 live dealers and pay them $200 per day, spend $6k on it and still have 4K profit in case of the live tourney... BUT in caase of online tournament, 99% of rake money is the profit.
All money deposited today will be casinos money 10 days later.
Another thing is money laundring through online poker. Stolen credit cards, bank accounts and online wallets are washed through online poker... Hackers simply lose stolen money to their own accounts or to the partners accounts, very often it happens right at the victims PC. Victim catches a virus, and hacker takes control of his PC, casino, policce and victim can't do anything about it... you can't prove anything.
Now, when you've paid with your credit card at some online shop, and this shop was hacked, some hacker has stolen all information from the database. Or he got acces to your account at your home PC... Doesn't matter. AND he starts playing with your money at the poker tables, losing your money to his partners. What can you prove in this case? "It wasn't me" "I haven't lost $4K, I've never played poker in my life" "Someone hacked my PC" ???? Casino will laugh, Police will laugh, in most of the cases they simply don't start the investigation if the stolen sum was less than certain amount, and hackers know about it.
I know personally one guy who was a victim of such. Some hacker had access to my friends PC, installed sort of proxy server and spent my friends bankroll at 888(pacificpoker) in just few minutes playing 3 HU SNG games, one of the opponents was hackers partner. But the support team at 888 has found nothing unusual, cause games been played using my friends PC and his iP...
I was a victim of online fraud, but not related to poker, used my debit card at wrong site... I guess they have partner programs or something, cause $270 waporised from my card, and there was approximatively 120 transactions 1-5$ each at different sites and billings.
Online Poker in its current form is a massive fraud. Together with online casinos. For example PokerStars software costs several millions of dollars, so they make several millions each day in form of rake. It doesn't matter if you're a winning or losing player, what matters is if you're depositing money = you're a fool. The absolute winner is the casino or poker room. The second winner is a hacker who plays using your money. The third winner is a freeroll player who made his way up using his time, which is also money. Rest of the players are 100% losers. Even the one who deposited 1K and turned it to 1 million during a year. The fortune smiled for him, but his life is ruined now if he won't invest into something real, but will keep playing at higher limits. Statistics say that 80% of startups in business are failing during first year. Statistics in poker say that 99% of players are failing again and again. Those who play live poker and online poker, usually see the difference, hitting a set on flop and slowplaying it in live poker = always a profit, hitting a set and slowplaying it in online poker = always or very often a bad beat, cause for strange reason agression is very often getting rewarded.
Assuming it all, it's no wonder that some countries are restricting online poker and casinos. Instead of becoming scientists, engineers, sportsmans... people are staring at pixels on their screens and believe that these pixels are cards, calculating odds and outs for a deck of cards that doesn't even exist in reality. :elefant:
Poker Orifice
FoolsTilt
Platinum Level
When you're saying 'gambling' I guess you're not referring to poker? Because if you're making these generalizations & suggesting this is what is happening for online poker it is incorrect.
K
kelvin22
Rock Star
Silver Level
Actually, I AM referring to poker. But you are right, it should not fall under general 'gambling', however, it's all the same to the gov. You are putting your money in a game where you are more likely to loose than win, and if you win, there's also the chance that you will choose to keep you winnings in some other country, so... not only do you "shorten" their pockets, bu you also (possibly) deny them the chance of getting it back. As long as that kind of risk exists for them... it's gambling all the same, whether it's poker, or some game that actually has nothing to do with gambling.
Vilgeoforc
Visionary
Bronze Level
Unfortunately it is. All roads lead to the disintegration of the world poker community. Every year some big country declares a ban on online poker and leaves the world pool. We've lost Australia, india and Colombia over the last year. Poker rooms will survive, but only as separate reservations like Pokerstars.eu.