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Thread: What's your position on Online Gambling

  1. #1
    The debate about online gambling ratcheted up a few notches when Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands announced his campaign to stop online gambling. He has opposed online gambling for a long time -- and this is nothing new. On the surface it makes perfectly good sense that the operator of brick and mortar casinos should want gamblers to play in his establishments and not play at home in their underwear. Allowing players in his brick and mortar casinos to play in their underwear is probably not an option.

    Of course there are those who favor online gambling including some of the other operators of brick and mortar casinos including just about ever other brick and mortar casino operator there is. They all have taken steps to operate their own online casinos.

    Even here in California the Indian casinos and the card casinos and poker rooms have made various efforts for online gaming.

    Here is an article giving ten reasons why Sheldon Adelson is wrong and I think everyone should read it: http://online.casinocity.com/article...issue=11-22-13

    But I would like to think that Sheldon Adelson may be right. I don't think online casinos are the right solution for government or for the casino industry that is looking for a new avenue of growth.

    When I play online poker it is on free sites that pay small prizes that come from advertising revenue. To date, my online poker winnings are less than $25. But I don't play online poker to get rich... I play because there is nothing worthwhile on TV to watch and playing free online poker tournaments is fun. It beats playing Pong or Pac Man or some of the new puzzle games.

    If full online casinos were made legal I wouldn't play craps for money on them, nor would I play video poker or any other casino game. When you play in an online casino you don't get the comps for the shows, you don't get the comps for the dinners, and you don't get the comps for shopping events.

    Online gaming is also nothing "special" because you can do it anytime. Going to a casino is a special time -- and there is fun in just getting there and planning to get there, and checking into the room, and sightseeing and cocktail waitress watching, and checking out the other ladies. (Yes, get real that's the other "game" in a casino.)

    When you play online the atmosphere doesn't change much, does it?

    I also don't understand how online gaming is supposed to increase revenue and the number of players for brick and mortar casinos. I think online gaming will rob the brick and mortar casinos of players and revenue and the automation that is online gaming will lead to fewer jobs for people in casinos.

    Every casino player who objects to automated blackjack tables with cartoons of dealers dealing cards on a video screen should also object to online casinos.

    I would be very happy if Sheldon Adelson is successful and stops online gaming dead.

    Keep gaming in the casinos. That doesn't mean stop online gaming but keep it at low limits, keep it advertiser supported, and keep it small so that when players really do want the "Vegas experience" they really will have to go to Vegas to get it.

    Sheldon Adelson, I'm on your side.

  2. #2
    I support online gambling. We have no casinos in South Carolina. Also, I have a serious problem with the government, or anyone else, telling me how I can and cannot spend my money. I worked very hard for many years to get what little I have. I also have health problems, so gambling is one of the few things that I can still do. I love to play Texas Hold'em, and am pretty good at it. I do not want casinos to get hurt and for employees to lose their jobs. Literally, most of my very best friends work at casinos. Therefore, I support limits on how much can be bet -- similar to what Alan described. Even that is not allowed in South Carolina. We are much too pious for such behavior -- oops, we lead the nation in family violence and related deaths.

  3. #3
    One thing online gambling will definitely hurt is tips for casino dealers! I would be howling in protest against it if I were a croupier/dealer.

  4. #4
    I played Bovada about 2-3 months ago. I found it was decent. I played mainly JoB at 5 cents and was lucky enough to hit a Royal. What I liked about the site is they were generous with the bonuses. Like you could stack several bonuses together and play off those for a while. The downsides were when you cashed out your money does take a little while to get to you because you are getting it from overseas. Also the check is deposit only so you can't just take it to a check cashing place and walk out. I actually had to open a checking account just to get paid.

    Overall it wasn't bad and I would have continued to do it except for two things: First they slashed the paytables quite a bit on the games I played. Like .5-1% in some cases. Secondly I figured if I was going put larger sums of money through a casino, why not do it in Vegas or to a lesser extent a California casino to get comps and other perks.

    As far as shutting it down, Like others have said on here some people are homebound, or have physical or mental issues that make going to a casino very stressful and taxing. Why not have a place that caters to them? I personally think I get more benefit going to a casino as far as value for each dollar wagered but I would never want to tell someone else what is or isn't best for them.

    If I were a casino or casino chain I would be leading the way on online gambling. Make it available in every household. Then I would do the following things:

    A.) Make the paytables/odds a little lower than the properties I am representing.

    B.) Make the paytables/odds at my home casino a little higher.

    C.) Streamline player's club cards so you can earn points to the casino family.

    D.) Offer rewards but keep the online ones small while offering good rewards to your casino/hotel. I.E. 10 dollars of online freeplay for every 1k spent but free hotel nights, buffets, show etc Pretty much the same treatment someone would get based on their play at the casino normally.

    In this way you are giving people a legal online gaming experience but at the same time you are advertising your hotel/casino and emphasizing the priority. You will have degenerates and people that get addicted all the time but you will also have people that spend a certain amount of money and then make occasional trips/vacations to your brick and mortar location as well to redeem what they got online. If they never come, you are still making something from them but if they do come you get people spending money twice when you might not have had these people come at all.

    Someone is going to make money off of online gaming. Instead of fighting it, these companies should be determining the best way to integrate online gaming into their business model.

  5. #5
    Alan, you are wrong about this in several ways.

    Online gambling will NOT rob people of the chance to earn comps. Online gambling sites have always given comps and rewards -- just in a different way than brick and mortal casinos.

    The legalized online gambling sites (such as wsop.com in Nevada) actually do provide comps. Also, you can earn Seven Stars by playing on wsop.com alone and not even setting foot in a CET casino!

    Legalized online gambling might decrease brick-and-mortal revenues, but those same companies will be the ones with the licenses to provide online gaming! Therefore, the companies will still be making the same (or even greater) revenue, but it will just be coming from different sources.

    You can complain about brick-and-mortar jobs being lost, but that is always the case with technology. Many jobs in existence in the 1950s are gone today because of advancements in technology. You can't say that's a bad thing. Technological advancements should never be thwarted simply because jobs get lost.

    I can understand why certain players won't like online gambling, which is why brick-and-mortar casinos will always exist. But people should have the choice, and the government should not be telling us how we can spend our own money.

    Online gambling should be legalized, regulated, and fully available to the US public.
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  6. #6
    Again--in total agreement with Dan. After many years of legalized internet betting on horse racing here in Illinois, the legislature (for no reason--they just didnt get around to renewing it) let the law lapse and we could not bet for several months. The race tracks saw little or no uptick in on track betting in Illinois. Technology has changed the game---other than california and a few "special tracks" it is an on-line game now. And like the on-line casinos, they are also owned by the tracks so they still are making the profit--and actually a greater profit because they dont have to share it all with the state in taxes.

    Whether I trust on line casinos is another issue.

  7. #7
    Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Online gambling will NOT rob people of the chance to earn comps. Online gambling sites have always given comps and rewards -- just in a different way than brick and mortal casinos.
    Actually, this is an insignificant issue. No one should play for comps, anyway.

    Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    But people should have the choice,
    Why? Should you also have the choice to buy an unsafe car? Should you have the choice to use untested and bogus medicines? Should you have the choice to invest with Bernie Madoff operating an investment house from his prison cell? Should you have the choice to invest with companies with cooked books? Should you have the choice to go skydiving with companies known to have faulty equipment?

    Government regulation is needed to keep consumers from making bad choices. I think online gambling is a bad choice.

  8. #8
    I'm dead against online gambling. There's too many ways to screw the system. I don't want my underage kids to find a cleaver way to develop a gambling addiction because they were able to "work around" the system (like underage drinking, using drugs, etc). Kids are behind computers all the time nowadays. They grow up with computers in a way we never did. They have more knowledge of computers at the age of 5 than most of us at our age.

    The most important reason why I'm against online gambling is the isolation. People don't talk to eachother face to face anymore. The web is filled with forums (like this one), people work online more and more (out of their homes) and kids interact through cell phones (what's app, twitter, facebook, instagram, etc). Personal and physical interaction is disappearing rapidly. The result: online gambling enhances social isolation. It's harder to notice individual gambling addiction and emotional problems connected to it. The life of a gambling addict could be filled with 2 things: finding ways to get money and gamble online (anonymous, isolated, alone). Do we really want to "find" more people with a rope around their neck because they couldn't handle all their personal problems anymore because of the total social isolation?

  9. #9
    Originally Posted by Vegas_lover View Post
    The most important reason why I'm against online gambling is the isolation. People don't talk to eachother face to face anymore.
    While this is not directly related to the debate about online gaming it happens to be very significant. I recently sent a report to my clients about the problems with the young, new marketing managers that are coming out of colleges these days. Most of them grew up using emails and text messages and as a result literally cannot have face to face or telephone conversations. Some even refuse to take phone calls -- and I've had to either struggle with those marketing managers or go around them and right to the company owners.

    This new generation can't spell, can't talk, and can't relate face to face. It has created a challenge for communicating with customers. You can read my full report here:
    http://alanbestbuys.com/id316.html

  10. #10
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    While this is not directly related to the debate about online gaming it happens to be very significant. I recently sent a report to my clients about the problems with the young, new marketing managers that are coming out of colleges these days. Most of them grew up using emails and text messages and as a result literally cannot have face to face or telephone conversations. Some even refuse to take phone calls -- and I've had to either struggle with those marketing managers or go around them and right to the company owners.

    This new generation can't spell, can't talk, and can't relate face to face. It has created a challenge for communicating with customers. You can read my full report here:
    http://alanbestbuys.com/id316.html
    I enjoy talking face-to-face or on the phone for a fast-paced, easy conversation....but forums such as these provide a huge advantage in the sense that each back-and-forth response can be more thoughtfully applied. If necessary, I can spend 5-10 minutes pondering my response to a good forum post or email whereas in a phone or face-to-face conversation this would never happen. You usually have only a few seconds to say what you want about something and then people just "move on".

    People interrupt each other and full trains of thought never carry themselves through. There are lots of times when I like to really think about what I want to say and a back-and-forth conversation with all its rushed immediacy makes this hard to carry out. Live conversations tend to be very superficial without true depth in the subject matter.

    One notable exception is teaching a class or having a conference call where everyone wants to (or is forced!) to listen to you as a matter of course, but for everyday people what I said above holds true more often.

  11. #11
    Originally Posted by Count Room View Post
    I enjoy talking face-to-face or on the phone for a fast-paced, easy conversation....but forums such as these provide a huge advantage in the sense that each back-and-forth response can be more thoughtfully applied.
    Unfortunately, in the business world, it is essential to be able to meet face to face, to discuss and negotiate, and to hammer out plans and ideas... often in a collaborative environment. Try doing that via email and text and by memo.

    Did you see the United Commercial from 1990 in my article? Back in the 1990 the issue was fax answering a fax. Today its text or email answering a text or an email.

  12. #12
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    Unfortunately, in the business world, it is essential to be able to meet face to face, to discuss and negotiate, and to hammer out plans and ideas... often in a collaborative environment. Try doing that via email and text and by memo.

    Did you see the United Commercial from 1990 in my article? Back in the 1990 the issue was fax answering a fax. Today its text or email answering a text or an email.
    Alan: Yeah, it's highly situational depending on your workplace needs. I'm just a grunt that takes marching orders in the public sector who largely speaks one-on-one with a couple dozen different people over time in an office setting. Once in a while I'll participate in a meeting, but it's usually just to go over new procedures at work or small training courses rather than "hammering out plans and negotiating".

    I was thinking more about standard conversations with friends and acquaintances outside work. Probably veered too far off topic on that one!

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