[jman220]

[ QUOTE ]
as little as $500 I have no doubt I could parlay that into $50,000 by the end of 12 months


god bless online poker, huh?

i find it absolutely amazing that i have zero doubt you could do this. however, the offset is that we are losing some brilliant minds with all these young guys leaving college to pursue pro poker. i don't know what the long term effect will be, but i guarantee there will be one. the fact that someone who is willing to apply themselves is perfectly capable of making huge sums of money at online poker is kinda sad for society imo. but i sit here and make money on the business of poker, so i really can't complain or lecture without being a hypocrite.

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This is a very interesting sentiment that I agree with completely. I may be the only winning player (caveat: or a losing player running really well for a year) on these boards who is actually in favor of the U.S. drastically increasing its regulations of online gambling, and I wouldn't be opposed to them banning it completely. It is a drain on our society and our economy. It is causing billions of dollars to be drained out of the U.S. economy an into the hands of offshore oftentimes somewhat shady online casinos. It creates a cycle of poverty that in the end hurts us all. Its why recently while playing on pokerstars, I started to get really annoyed at all the people who use their children's pictures as their player avatars. 90 percent of them are losing players, and are losing money that they could be giving to their kids. That said, or course I'm a hypocrite, because I do play, and I do make money of it. I can also afford to have this opinion because I am not a pro, and just play to supplement my income while I attend law school. I don't intend to continue playing once I graduate. But it really is a sad state of affairs that gambling for large sums of money has become so mainstream, and people just toss away tons of money on an addiction. I also have little doubt that many of the large winners on this site are intelligent enough (as evidenced by their ability at poker) to make just as much money, if not more money in the non-poker world.