After Hearing, Frank’s Poker Bill Nears Mark-up and Vote

Now Annie Duke is going to compare poker ruling of US Congress with tyrannical China and Iran.
What a stupid greedy creature she is.
I wonder if she would be fighting for that bill If she was not involved financially in UB.
If she wants to play poker she can play 24 hours in Las Vegas, Atlantic City but no, she needs
donkeys to make money for her highness.

donkeys - thats how she would call people if she played against them at one table
and they would catch a lucky card on the river.

If she is as good as she claims and poker is not gambling than she and other pros should be
making enough money playing against tourists in Las Vegas and they would not need to involve
more people to waste their time and donate their money to likes of princess Annie Duke.

Don't ever or even think about bringing online poker in this country. If that did happen, it would be worst thing than the financial meltdown in 2008. Poker online would be a great way for Annie and her cronies to suck money out of hapless victims.

Even the people making money online poker are victims if you think about it. Consier all the wasted time. People don't value their time enough.

Listen! we all lose as social community if poker is approved for online. Only winners are those poker sites.

Ban the online gambling and start prosecuting people actively running these sites.

Where is the government that I pay taxes to protect the social fabric from these wolves?

Nxt007 and Elpokero ....I don't know where to start with either of you. You both generalize and speak opinion as if it is fact. Nxt007 your assertation that online poker hurts our community is absurd. Online poker IS a community.

I'm glad Annie is there on my behalf to challenge these holier than thou politicians. The politicians have their own agenda which in the end doesn't have anything to do with protecting kids or preventing money laundering. What a joke, what an outrage. Hey Congress, get the hell out of my life and get the hell off my computer. What I do with my time and money is my business, not yours.

Wow the government has some terrible reasons for making online poker illegal. Kids? come on, Mcdonalds should be outlawed too then, it's done more damage to kids than online poker ever has and ever will AND if it's regulated by the US government that problem would be solved anyhow, what a bunch of backwards idiots we have running this country. I'd like to have a talk with BUCCASS about online poker and more so about how much of an idiot he is

BACCASS or whatever his name is lol

he even looks like some dumb bastard

he even looks like some dumb bastard

Well, grinding out in smelly casinos with no end in sight does not appeal to Annie Duke anymore.
And playing against the best is too hard and Annie knows she could not make steady living.

If poker is not gambling then find sponsors and you pros play against each other regularly
like e.g. in golf, tennis and so on.
I would like to see how many pros could actually make a living this way
as opposed to taking money from clueless wannabes in casinos
or profit from online illegal poker operations.

And please don't make it about freedom, it sounds silly.

Online poker sites exist for one reason. To create rake. They don't care who wins or who loses. Their software is set up to maximize profits by insuring more hands are played creating more rake.If you think that's technologically impossible you don't understand computers.Just a slight tweak and a 5%, almost undetectable, skew becomes millions of dollars for them. When your bank account is low you will win a slightly greater percentage of your "races" because having you go broke defeats their purpose. Which is to extract every nickle they can.

to ArsenicistheAnSr: "she is fighting for u"

Yeah, sure. Where do you live ArsenicistheAnSr, in La La Land?

@ Dare2 - you are right. The poker sites exist to make money. Where did they teach screwing your customers over relentlessly as a way to maximize profits in business school? They didn't. Owners of poker sites know this. By the way once you are playing on a "legal" US Gov't sanctioned site the smart money says you will still be complaining about the theoretical "skew". I'm all for it, let's "legalize it" and get a US poker site. I'd love to see if it boosts my profits.

Playing poker online is exactly the same as day trading stocks online. The more skill, information, and reasoning ability you have, the better you will do. And just like everything that involves risk, no matter how good you are there is a chance you will go broke. This is what this capitalist economy is all about. If you wish to keep online poker illegal, than, simply, you hate freedom. Poker is the epitome of the American dream, that with hard work, practice, and patience you can improve your station in life. For me personally, playing poker is me acting in the pursuit of happiness, the indivisible right granted to me by the Constitution.

I guess there are alot of big government conservatives out there. Makes me laugh when I hear small government when you are arguing about what people can do on their own computer in their own home. Our forefathers are rolling over in their graves!

I don't see what all the fuss is about. I've been playing on Pokerstars for 6 or 7 years now and live in the U.S. Getting money in and out of my account is a piece of cake. Trust me, you don't want our government involved in this. Everything they get their hands on they tax and then $%#@ up!

Barney Frank and Garry Studds...the 2 gays congressmen from Massachusetts....

Did anyone know that they had aBUTTing districts?

Pretty sad when pokers players have as their spokeman..

Annie Douche

Remember when this country was based on the idea of freedom. Its complete bull sh*t that people are not being allowed to make their own decisions. There is nothing different then playing online vs playing live aside from less hands live and being physically at a table. I don't get how people are criticizing Annie when she is fighting for what we as poker players want. If your not a poker player, then don't comment. Poker is gambling however there is a skill level involved higher than any other casino game ever created. And if you think otherwise then go look at the numbers, the casino has the advantage at every other game. If your a pro at poker you can make significant money day to day, thats not luck, thats a consistent science you fools. People seem to think because they suck it all must be luck, bottom line is you don't work hard enough at it, dont understand variance and don't want to put the effort in to succeed. Most people are content working their 9 to 5 getting their yearly raises and going about there life, not being anything more than average. However to be a pro you need to be better than average, you need to work at it. The people who comment here who don't like online poker, so be it, then don't play. Its not my fault your a degen who cant walk away. Why should the government tell me what i should do with my money. If you don't have enough self control to not play then thats your problem. If you go broke from playing thats your problem. But every person should have the right to choose. IF people are drug addicts i dont blame the supplier. Its the persons problem. They made the decission to do what they did. I'm sick of this country trying to think it can lobby people with protection ideas. Humans are making the decissions the same humans that supposedly can be sucked into this gambling addiction. So what makes them better than anyone else. Why are they allowed to tell us what the f we should do with the money we work for. If you wanna drink, do drugs, gamble. You know the consequences, you should be able to make that choice. THATS F'N FREEDOM

Last time I checked gambling is illegal in most states except in few cities like vegas and Indian reservations. You can't compare poker to golf or tennis or any legitamate sports and games. You can try to put lipstick on a pig but it is stil ugly and smelly.

Legalizing online gambling is going to be beginning of demise of this country. Online poker is going to be like parasitic cancer devouring a body.

How many more young children have to be subjected to child ngelect because more dads and moms will be consumed by online poker when it becomes legalized? It is sickening to see infants and kids intow at casinos already.

Everyone has to understand if you want to be part of this society you have to play by the rules which was set up for good for overall soceity and not some few who managed to game the laws for their benefits.

Online poker is illegal and big fishes playing it and companies being prmoted and players promoting them should be all given warning legal letters to stop

Annie Duke is doing us a great favour taking this to congress.
Im not American but i hate the idea of your freedom being destroyed and losing my opportunity to play you all over some retard government.

I can't believe these douchebags in neck ties are going to decide the fate of online poker as we know it. Booooooooo! What we have here is just another bunch of bitter-middle-aged-farts whose last pleasure in life is in trying to regulate someone else's life. I have complete disdain for this whole process.

Regulating the many to protect the few is terrible public policy. Flat out terrible.

Poker is gambling - not like roulette but still gambling - plain and simple.
If poker was not gambling we would see poker pros beating regular folks easily.

If Tiger Woods, Federer, Nadal, Body Miller, Michael Jordan, Garry Kasparov, Fisher in their top form
competed against billions of people they would still end up winning or being in top 10 regularly
which cannot be said about best poker players in the world.

If Phil Ivey is the best player in the world (as most pros claim) and poker was not gambling
he would have to place among 10 best every World Series Event which will NEVER happen.
Why? Because there is too much luck involved.

Nobody wants to beat that dead horse again. Poker has already been PROVEN (don't make me find the links on several noted game theorists who have already proven it) to be a game of SKILL, but it also contains a good amount of short term luck/variance. That still doesn't make it "a game of luck". I mean, that's fact. You'd have a point if there were other Phil Ivey's out there who just weren't winning because of their bad luck. Wrong, there's one Phil Ivey, and he's the best of the best because he can go one level further than any of his poker counterparts. If you have real skill (real) it's only a matter of time before the game pays you back. Your "luck" argument is like beating a dead horse. Besides, what's the point? How about this, let's ban all leaisure activities that cost people money they could be spending on improving our society instead? Okay, everyone bust out their hammer and sickles! This is just sooo retarded. People play online for pennies at a time and you're making waaaaaaaaaay too big a deal out of it. The lowest limit in a casino is $1/$2 - Meanwhile $1/$2 is full of "pros" online. These fools need to back off, honestly. Especially when you make an argument that's been squashed a million times already - hey, I'm sorry you can't win consistently but nobody is going to print the universal-full-proof-instruction-manual-on-how-to-crush-poker? And if you ever think you found one, they probably lied to you. It's gotta be a personal journey, or just give it up already, you know? Stop whining about the couple thousand people online playing .01c/.02c, .10c/.20c - seriously, opponents of online poker have got to be coming from a place of bitterness for something that happened to them once upon a time. It's certainly not rooted in logical caring thought. That's bologna.

By definition poker pros DO beat regular folks easily. That's why they are called "Professionals." It's kind of like saying that professional surgeons are going to do brain surgery easily better than "regular folks." Duh! Geez,is it me, or is the whole country just getting dumber?

to Xo4: Yeah, you can beat that dead horse again and again
and poker would still remain gambling and gambling is illegal.

I wondar why Annie Duke don't fight for sport betting too.
Actualy I know why.
She does not have stake in it.
If poker is a game of skill then you can consider sport betting the same.

If they legalize poker then they should legalize sport betting too.

to AnthonyStone: "By definition poker pros DO beat regular folks easily."
That's not true.
How many best poker players in the world
won the biggest poker event WSOP Main Event last 10 years?

Those kind of results would not ever happen for example in chess - in real game of skills.
In poker as promotions and even poker pros say anybody can win on any given day.
In chess you can be lucky but 99.999999% people could NEVER beat Gary Kasparov even with the best luck in the world.

Look at the other games.
Tiger Woods, Federer, Nadal, Body Miller, Michael Jordan, Garry Kasparov: when they were the best
they were winning it all for years in a row.

It's fitting that you keep mentioning Tiger Woods because there's a great article on twoplustwo somewhere about how professional golfing tournaments are a lot like poker tournaments when it comes to the combination of "skill & variance". Mathematically speaking proker pros experience the same percentage of late finishes/wins as the top golfers in the world can expect. Think of it this way, Phil Ivey won two majors last year (two bracelets) - and final tabled the ME - and won millions online. How's Tiger doing? If someone can find that article from twoplustwo, I'd appreciate the link. Statistically speaking the best players in both games can expect the same sort of swings - but overall, in time, the players that are truly superior will eventually accumulate the most wins/most top finishes/most money. The problem is too many guys think they're superior, they really suck, and when they can't win they blame luck and call it gambling - seen it a thousand times. If you actually had any idea how hard some of the top players work at this you'd be sining a different tune.

Let's take an impromptu survey. All those who claim poker is gambling equivalent to any other form of gambling say "aye".

Those who disagree say "nay".

Next, all those who are showing a lifetime profit playing poker, say "aye".

And all those who are showing a loss over their lifetime of play thus far, just say "nay".

And try to be honest kids.

I'll start first. Nay and Aye.

The ignorance in these posts is amazing! Online poker is not illegal in the USA! Funding a poker account is illegal for financial institutions, yet not illegal for me as an individual. There has never been anyone convicted of playing poker online in the USA! NEVER!

King Walter, you are wrong. At the federal level, you are correct, however states such as Washington have banned online poker at the state level, and yes there have been people arrested for it.

Although I do not know if they were convicted...it could just be a deterrent strategy.