The eventual and inevitable death of online poker

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

This is how it will happen.

Feel free to save the URL to this post now, as you will refer to it in 6-30 months, and comment on my amazing prescience.

The current administration will attack on one of two fronts. The less likely is that they will go after ISPs as purveyors of smut and/or conduits for gambling, which will lead ISPs to start filtering. What is MUCH more likely is that the government will begin prosecuting gamblers. They will subpoena ISPs for gamblers’ records. This will not kill internet gaming and poker, but will cripple it. The players themselves will deal the deathblow.

We all know that our money is at risk when it is in unsecured accounts. The sites themselves likely do not keep our money in some separate account, only taking rake. More likely, they put the money in an account, and pay out what is requested. Much as George Bailey explained to those making a run on the Building & Loan in It’s a Wonderful Life, the monies deposited are used to pay expenses (in this case not homes, but software, servers and other expenses & profits). Regardless, I strongly suspect that cash reserves do not equal deposits.

So many players who fear prosecution will withdraw money from their accounts. Unlike the run on the Bailey Bros. Building & Loan, they will not accept a portion of their money and a promise of later payment. They will demand their money, and the sites will not be able to pay. Consumers will lose confidence and deposits will stop. With no way to pay bills or current customers, some of the sites will go dark, further eroding consumer confidence in online gaming. The gov’t will explain that the events they triggered were precisely what they were worried about, and will look to the general populace like they are protecting degenerates from themselves, when they really caused the problem through their actions. A few well-run sites will survive and some players will come back, but the industry will be devastated and many will lose the money they had sitting in offshore accounts.

This will not stop me from playing. Even if it happens, I will be losing OPM, and playing online is still +EV, even believing, as I do, that this is inevitable. Hopefully, the fall will be slow, which will allow sites to respond and stay afloat. A run on the bank, however, would be disaster.

Happy Holidays (and yes, the sky is falling, but not yet)