I'd just like to take a moment to rant, campaign, soapbox, whatever you want to call it, about a cause near and dear to my heart: the sneak-attack, underhanded attempts by Congress to outlaw online poker (for money). No, they haven't come right out and prohibited it - probably because it would be ultimately proven unconstitutional to do so, and because it's virtually impossible to enforce those kind of internet regulations at this juncture anyway. Instead, they've opted to, quietly and circuitously, prohibit credit card companies from doing business with poker-for-money sites, or other financial institutions that do business with poker-for-money sites. In other words, to play poker online for money, I have to make a deposit to a sort of Paypal-ish kind of site, using my credit card; that site in turn deposits money to the poker site. Now my credit card company won't permit those kind of deposits, and technically the other financial institution isn't supposed to make deposits to the poker sites either.
Let me just take a moment to say: THIS IS COMPLETE HORSES**T. I am an adult. It is MY money. And we are not talking about online casinos here, where - just like the real-live casinos - the house has a distinct advantage and you are truly "gambling" with almost no chance of coming out ahead in the long run. We are talking about a game of cards against other, live, consenting adults, to see who's the better card player, with a few bucks at stake. I don't wager hundreds of dollars (although some do), but I enjoy playing a 2-cent or 25-cent game once in awhile, to winning a whopping buck and know that I ROCK at this game. Sure, I also lose money; how is that different from going to a bar or amusement park or golf course and paying to play for a few hours? That's money I'm never going to see again - at least this way, I might win something!
And hey, I'm all for regulating the sites to make sure that there's nothing fishy going on in the underlying code that prevents any one person or subsection of players from winning fairly. And I'm perfectly willing to pay taxes on any actual profit I make (so far, I'm down $30 for a few months' of playing, so I'm thinking that counts as a "capital loss", not to worry). I just think I ought to be able to spend my money any way I want, when I am CLEARLY not hurting anyone with this activity, including myself. What happened to good old-fashioned capitalism? Let fools be parted from their money any way they choose, for heaven's sake. Who, exactly, does Congress think it's helping with this ridiculous bill?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment