If Obama can play poker with his Chicago cronies, how come the rest of us can't play it on line?
Click on the headline for a news link from Reason.com. (The story was covered more dispassionately by most major news sources.)
Fortunately, I only use play money online. So I haven't had any funds frozen by the Feds. But it pisses me off that I can't go to Poker Tilt any more. Its software and game options were far superior to games elsewhere. I also doubt that any of the real money players will be better off -- indeed, they are likely to be screwed -- because of this "fraud" investigation. Players were not defrauded, but their credit card charges said something other than "poker" because they wanted it that way, just as people using cards for sex or porn have more discreet charges shown; to my knowledge this is the only "fraud" in question.
*******Update 9/21/11******* Now the Feds are claiming that Full Tilt was a ponzi scheme -- that the owners took out a lot of money and didn't maintain the account balances necessary for the players to actually have the money shown in their balance statements. I don't know if this will be claimed for, or shown, for the other two major sites shut down by the Feds, but obviously this is not a frivolous charge. I have found a pretty good site for play money (PokerStars); they still have cash games, but not for "my area." (Presumably the U.S. I personally wouldn't play for real money on line anyway.)
