[Blarg]

It may end for Joe American Citizen. But what about Joe Canadian citizen? What could the U.S. do to lock out the davidross's, or people from a whole world full of other countries? There are plenty of banks out there, in plenty of countries.

I do worry a bit for Americans sometimes. Shutting down internet gaming for its own citizens would be a really crummy thing for American politicians to do, but there should be plenty of politicians around who are willing to do virtually limitlessly crummy things for a few bucks, kickbacks, contributions. There's always some smug jerk out there proud of himself for taking away our free choice for our own good.

If I were one of those Americans who was doing really well playing poker online and playing internet poker became impossible in America, I'd pick up and leave and set up shop elsewhere, personally. Canada, wherever.

Online players not in the U.S. would probably find a huge drop in numbers of players online if Americans disappeared from the online poker scene, but there would still be the WSOP and poker events being beamed all over the world every year for the forseeable future, and I don't think online poker would be forever crippled even if no U.S. citizen could play online anymore. It would be slowed down for a period, but population wise, the U.S. is just a drop in the bucket anyway.

I hope it never comes down to U.S. politicians screwing over their own citizens like that.

But I would be surprised if online poker wouldn't survive regardless.

Anybody else think the U.S.'s forced withdrawal from the online poker market would destroy the industry entirely, or cripple it so severely that, say, people in Canada couldn't scrape by?