Last week has seen the largest poker sites operating in the US being shutdown by the FBI. Against the sites and their executives charges of money laundering and bank fraud were brought. Additionally, a 3 billion USD civil suit was filled against the sites. Most of these actions are taking place under the umbrella of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (passed by the Bush administration).
At global level the situation is just as complicated, with online Poker playing being forbidden and/or heavily regulated under generic gambling laws in numerous countries and legal jurisdictions. The most common justifications for this kind of legislation falls somewhere within the categories: the immorality of gambling, the dangers of gambling addiction.
The immorality of gambling. Supported by a growing body of evidence, a large number of scholars and professionals such as the law school Prof. Charles Nesson (Founder and President of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society), to mention just one, would argue that poker is rather more a matter of skill than of luck or chance. Of course it has a luck component, but than again many other things in life have a chance component. This is why we pay insurance premiums; to get protection against random events the occurring of which would adversely affect us. In poker, the same as in the insurance industry, luck is quantifiable by statistical probabilities. Probably the most suitable examples of activities similar to poker playing are all the stock, equity, commodity, derivatives markets investment. Because we do not forbid an activity simply because it involves luck, from this perspective poker should not be outright forbidden either.
Let’s say for a moment that poker is purely a gambling activity. Why should gambling be forbidden either? Because it is immoral? How? I am having challenges understanding the logic of morality in this case, particularly because we practice massive double standards when it comes to the topic of gambling. Lotteries are purely about luck and gambling, yet they are legal in most countries around the world. Not only are they legal, but they are, usually, highly profitable, highly regulated state owned monopolies. (Try opening a lottery in your country, see how it goes.) So after all gambling is not immoral and illegal if the state runs it, it is only immoral if private persons do. Moreover, I do not know of any scientifically or historically proven causal correlation between gambling and the degree to which a community is thriving or decaying. From this perspective there is also no standing reason for having poker forbidden.
The dangers of gambling addiction. Addiction is generally a terrible thing, and chronic addiction can have serious negative implications for both the person suffering from it and the surrounding people. Any healing addict and any of us who have a relative or a friend suffering from an addiction can testify to this extent. From this perspective chronic addictions of any type should be prevented whenever possible. On the other hand, poker does not create instant addiction. In most cases not even long term exposure creates any kind of addiction. In fact only a small minority is prone to becoming an addict. The same being the case for alcohol drinking, cigarette smoking, long distance running, dog walking, ice cream eating. None of which are forbidden, rather controlled to a certain extent. Looking at things from this angle only makes the case for containment (through taxation) and regulation, same as for cigarettes, alcohol, and speculative markets.
The only other remaining angle is the one of accumulating, correlated factors. This is the case of factors which individually are close to being harmless, but when put together they catalyze and pose major risks (e.g. some chemical reactions of combined substances). It is worth having explored the case of gambling activities in terms of behaviors that it encourages, and the ways in which they get associated with other behaviors. But, as mentioned in the first part of the article, poker has hardly anything to do with gambling in the classical sense.
In a nutshell, after considering the arguments for and against poker as an activity, forbidding it on or offline is a highly exaggerated measure. In the least it should be regarded as any other social activity falling under the general civil and penal code, at at most it should be regulated and taxed to a certain degree. And it should happen only as a result of a mature, sensible conversation.
