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More gambling novices, pros ante up with rapid growth of online casinos |
Dave is living the gamer's dream, or the government bureaucrats' nightmare, depending on your point of view. It's all because Dave's got a knack with playing cards, a desire to avoid 9-to-5 work, and, of course, a computer connected to the Internet.
Dave won't reveal his last name, but doesn't mind saying that he's a 29-year-old freelance writer in Virginia. He's also a fervent poker player, thanks to the Internet, where he can get up an online game anytime, day or night. Lately, he's gotten so good at it that Dave decided to turn pro -- sort of.
"I decided to do a week-to-week experiment to see if I could sustain myself and my family by playing poker, primarily online," he said. Six weeks into the experiment, he's bringing in about $1,000 a week, less than he made freelancing but enough to get by. "So far, so good," he said. Dave has even published an Internet commentary on his adventures, written for hardcore power players.
Dave's foray into
professional gambling has been made possible by the dozens of Internet sites
that offer competitive online poker games. Such websites have been around for
years, but business has surged during the past year, thanks to a host of new
cable TV shows devoted to tournament poker. Bravo's "
It's all rather dismaying to
government officials looking to keep the lid on gambling. On the Internet, every
PC can become a casino. And federal and state laws designed to restrict gaming
may or may not apply. There's a federal Wire Act that was written to prevent
telephone or telegraph bets on sports events such as baseball games. But the law
says nothing about using the wires to play casino games such as poker; the
legislation was drafted in 1961, when such things were undreamed of. A federal
judge in Louisiana has ruled that the Wire Act doesn't apply to online poker
shops. But the US Justice Department insists other federal laws still make
Internet gambling illegal. There are state antigambling laws as well. That's why
Scott Wilson runs Paradise
"At this very moment, there's 4,000 people playing," said Wilson, a Canadian by birth. About 70 percent of them are Americans. And, by the way, about half of the players aren't spending a dime. Paradise Poker runs free games that anyone can play without risking their money.
Visitors to the site download game software that lets them sit at a digital table and join a game. They're not playing against the house but each other. Those who want to play for real money, use their credit cards to ante up. The site makes its money from the "rake," a piece of every pot wagered. If a game has a $20 pot at stake, Paradise Poker gets $1.
This isn't a high-stakes casino like the legendary Binion's Horseshoe of Las Vegas, where people have gambled $1 million on a single hand. Wilson said the highest a pot ever gets is about $800. But you can run up quite a bankroll playing at such stakes for a few hours. "Any given night people are winning $10,000 in poker tournaments," Wilson said.
Gambling inevitably has an aura of sleaze, especially when the casino's based offshore to stay out of reach of the law. But Wilson insists everything's on the up-and-up. Balestra of Interactive Gaming News backs him up. "The industry's done a pretty good job of regulating itself at this point," he said. After all, with the house getting a rake from every wager, "you really don't need to cheat people to make money in the business."
That doesn't mollify the opponents of Internet gambling. They worry that minors will be exposed to an unsavory lifestyle and that adults will be seduced into gambling addictions. There's even concern that terrorist organizations could use Internet gambling businesses to generate cash.
Last year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the use of credit cards at most Internet gambling sites, including online poker rooms. The Senate has yet to take action on the measure.
But online gaming houses have recently acquired a powerful ally -- the World Trade Organization, the agency that regulates global commerce. In late March, the WTO stunned US officials by demanding the United States abolish all restrictions on Internet gambling, because they're an unfair limitation on world trade.
The WTO ruling has outraged US lawmakers, who say the agency has no right to dictate the criminal laws of a member country. But Wilson of Paradise Poker thinks the United States will eventually make its peace with online gambling. "The laws don't move as fast as the Internet does," Wilson said. "But prohibition just doesn't work."
It certainly hasn't stopped Dave, the onetime writer turned full-time gambler, who is $6,000 ahead of the game -- so far.
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