Americans spent $16 billion last year on online poker, more than they spent on going to the movies. Poker player and journalist Marc Cooper says the government should legalize, regulate, and tax online poker rather than trying to shut it down. Because like Prohibition, they’ll never succeed.
As for “protecting the public from the scourge of inside straights” and the addiction of gambling:
When I saw the Dow tanking Monday morn, I almost wore my fingertips to the bone, using my iPhone to frantically transfer my online stock accounts back and forth trying to offset a faceless house that was handing me a much worse beating than any I had ever suffered from a donkey’s inside straight draw on Full Tilt.
Wall Street of course has their game rigged more than any casino.