should online gaming be legalized in the US?

I'm online gaming right now.

 

Yes. So should gambling. Everywhere. Stupid states which don't want extra income from casinos. Oh wait, I have a gambling problem. Though it only is a problem if I lose money right?

 

poker tounaments are not gaming per se. They are completely legal anywhere in the US. They are no different than any other contest where an entry fee is paid and prize money is awarded to people that place in the top ten or whatever the rules are for that particular tourney.

 

It's not!

 

We See You Playing Battlefield 1942! Freeze!!!

 

Sorry, try again.

 

Has anyone ever been arrested for using PartyPoker??

 

where is a poker tournament illegal?

Here in Virginia, gambling is illegal but poker tournaments are not at all and there are plenty of them going on.

 

If there is money involved, it's illegal in a lot of states. Give you're state's Attorney General office a call.

 

I know there are no legal issues with poker tournaments here. It is no different than a golf tournament where people pay to play and the winners receive prizes, some of which are money.

In poker tourneys that I have played in, the chips do not actually represent money. The winner does not actually "take the pot" the prize money is tiered.

 

The difference involves whether or not "rake" is involved.

If someone is hosting a game in their home, be it a ring game or tourney, and takes a rake, thereby profiting off of it, then it's not looked upon too fondly.

If there's no rake, it may or may not be any more legal, but no one's going to care enough to knock on your door.

 

http://www.onlinepokerfaq.com/guide/legal.html

It essentially varies state by state. Since most online poker rooms are located off shore, I can only imagine that they have not paid the appropriate licensing fees and or application fees to run a legal game in any state where poker is legal. Regardless, each state law is different and has there own elements. If you want to know about texas law, you can drop me a pm. The question is, what can be done about it.

The WTO recently ruled (from my understanding) that the US government can't put restrictions on online gambling. So the US is required to change/modify its laws which prohibit online gambling. Not that the Bush administration will do anything along those lines.

Regardless, we tried to get a poker tournament going on pokerstars for bigsoccer, but we never got enough people. There is an old thread in FFA about it somewhere.

 

From what I've seen, there are a good number of poker players on Bigsoccer. Perhaps if you put a poll in the FFA zone asking which site people played on, then we set up a tournament on the most popular site, it could be up and running soon.

 

I'd be into it

 

Given the stakes likely involved, there's nothing to be concerned about. The game host is operating in an area where he takes an entry fee, but where he is, it's legal for him to do that - that's why they operate from where they do.

Does that make it legal for US based players? Don't know. I'm not qualified to answer that and won't pretend to be. But even if 10 US based Bigsoccer folks create a tournament on Full Tilt, for example - it's still Full Tilt that profits from the rake (the buy-in juice in this case). It's perfectly legal for them to do that.

Even it were deemed completely illegal through clear legislation, I have literally no idea how in the world they would enforce it. Wouldn't make it right, I just don't know how they'd do it given the magnitude of its success in the US already. Literally millions of players on the top sites (UB, Party, PokerStars, etc.) are American based. I mean, going 66 mph in a 65 zone is breaking a law, few people will get cited for it.

Some checks are in place to hamper it. For example, most credit card companies are not going to accept your transactions to an offshore gaming account, be it for basketball betting or poker. But, as you'd expect, other outlets have come along (Firepay, Netteller, etc.) to make up for that. Then even beyond that, Netteller won't deal with you if you live in particular states (Maryland was one of them for a long time, not sure if that is still the case.)

 

Count me in!! I use Party Poker the odd time and I wasn't aware that it might be illegal. I mostly use Ladbrokes though and this does not allow any Americans. They use this fact in their advertising as if it's a good thing!

 

Don't know. I think MLSNHTOWN was one of the ones originally trying to organize it. I didn't have anything to do with it at that point - so you may want to PM him and ask.