Meet the New Boss

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”

–Abraham Lincoln

I wonder what Honest Abe would think of the UIGEA? And is it really being enforced “strictly” if the arrests of the Neteller execs were under the Wire Act? They say if you want to stop the beast, you cut off its head. Using the Wire Act to force Neteller to suspend US operations is more like severing the cartiod artery and ending the flow.

It’s a pretty depressing time for online poker and the deafening silence from the sites themselves is not helping. Dare I say they are exhibiting Nero-esque behavior. In the ominous days before the legislation, I took the view that there would be ways around the “ban.” I likened it to Napster. Once the RIAA came down on the file sharing network, others popped up. There are technological wizards in basement fortresses worldwide figuring how to get around the intervention of Big Money and Big Government. And there are plenty of folks trying to load their online accounts with pre-paid Visas and the like.

But here’s the thing. As others have mentioned, the casual player is not going to go to the extreme measures needed to continue their online play. The fish, once broke, are not going to be looking into numbered Swiss accounts. The player pool not only shrinks, but is infested with sharks.

There is an End Game to all this and as each day passes I become more and more sure of exactly what it is. If Government is glacial and unresponsive, Big Business is not. The UIGEA is not simply political pandering to the special interests of a voting block, but to special interests with deep pockets and an opportunity. If you were on the board of MGM/Mirage, do you think internet gambling might have come up in a meeting the last four or five years? With all the squaking about regulation and money laundering (really, that one still kills me) and dollars flowing over the borders of the US of A, you think somebody in that room might have wondered how the land-based casinos can get a piece of the pie? Wouldn’t you have a plan in place? Maybe more than just a plan. A