Asshole

This is not the first time I have written on the subject of online poker. It's a game I have grown to enjoy tremendously over the past three years and thanks to Bill Frist, steps are being taken to outlaw this wonderful game.

In a typical corrupt politician move he snuck anti-gambling legislation into a completely unrelated bill to secure our nations ports. Now one might ask first of all why it has taken five years since 9/11 to try and secure our ports, but that's probably a different issue.

In an underhanded move he slipped this faulty legislation into the bill and the whole thing got approved. When asked about the bill Frist said, "Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the family, dashes dreams and frays the fabric of society." One might even start to agree with this wonderful logic until one reads the bill. You see the bill does not seek to outlaw online gambling at all. It actually provides exceptions for horserace betting, fantasy games, and online lotteries. So as they say in the south Dr. Frist is talking out of both sides of his mouth. You can't pretend to be tough on gambling while at the same time legalizing specific forms of it that you happen to like.

America is supposed to be land of the free. Why do we have to put up with assholes like this telling us which specific forms of gambling we are allowed to participate in? It's our money. We earned it, we paid our tax on it, and we want to spend it in a manner of our choosing. Trying to emulate China is not the way forward. We need to fully legalize online gaming, allow American companies to cash in on this massive market, tax it and regulate it. There can be no excuse for this attack on our liberties.

But despite the annoyance of this sleazy politician messing with our liberties, it is not all bad news. According to analysts the bill is deeply flawed. It does not make playing poker online illegal, it really just cracks down on companies operating in the US for the purpose of online gambling. The bill also makes it harder to transfer money from American banks or credit cards to online gambling sites. Of course this does nothing to prevent people from using Neteller or a similar service. So in other words it should change very little for American online poker players. Certain sites may withdraw from the market, but many more will remain.

With any luck these evil politicians will feel that their work on this issue is done, and go back to legalizing torture and plotting world war three. Maybe now they will leave online gaming alone for a while so we can continue to enjoy this all American game of poker.