ken_p (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ken_p) wrote,@ 2006-09-20 02:36:00 |
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Froggy went a courtin'
Well, the French have joined the gambling witch hunt. My last name is Prevo which is an Americanizing of Prevost. That is French but if you don't know that it could be close to a lot of middle European names. I don't brag up the fact and it actually a minority part of my gene pool. The French seem to embarrass themselves at every turn--including yesterday at the UN. I have enough to embarrass myself over without falling back on that.
So, without pride, I read that the French have joined the indignation against gambling that isn't their own, licensed bit of profitability--joining another Napoleonic Code entity--Louisiana--in gambling self-righteousness.
The On-line poker rooms are a fairly recent phenomenon. There's a group that question it integrity--which is a carryover from the general view. It is unfortunate but founded in fact. Legal gambling was never found outside Nevada in our Puritanic past. Fallwell et al also have historic counterparts in the Billy Sunday crowd and right back to Cotton Mather. So it is doubtful gambling's nemesis will be going away or that some of their less attractive side will disappear with the loss of a born-again President.
When Las Vegas started to grow up, the states manage to put aside their puritanical ire and join in the greed with lotteries, riverboats and Indian Casinos while thinking they could maintain their righteousness. Politicians get as weird a collection of ideas as the rest of us.
To do the weirdness justice the politicians have to also play the suckers from both sides of the street. France it seems has joined that cause. They have licensed gambling entities as does Louisiana. They promote their good above all else. For France it is the EU hypocrisy of fairness until they see alternate profit. For Louisiana, it is shaking down the rest of America to get a city rebuilt that should either be bulldozed or reduced to a theme park to let them still get their riverboat cut and a bit of tourism with a combination of the two being the intelligent answer.
So, when you talk gambling in any form, you don't own the moral high-ground and you are faced with a political view that is disingenuous to say the least. So, what is our favorite poker room to do? At this point, it is screw up along with all the rest of us. The pols and media are popping out all the buzz words: crooked, money laundering, unreliable, etc. etc. etc. And, they are so quiet it looks like they have something to hide.
Las Vegas has surmounted the Puritans using PR firms and lobby groups. That gets no wrath from the Politicians. Instead it gives them a warm glow in the coffers. Maybe, online poker with its developing relationship to the casino big boys is hoping they'll bail them out. But, the fact is the only benefit Vegas sees is the added traffic and they are pretty good at building that on their own. If the poker boom died tomorrow, it would likely increase their take by letting them reduce payroll and put more profitable per square foot slots in its place.
The online folks are spread from across the globe—from the funny names in the Caribbean to the ones in the Mediterranean where we say, “That's a country?” to a few legit countries we don't need an atlas to find. Dutch Boyd started the tradition of suspicious online ownership and while there are a few public companies that can claim audited reliability the rest are in clouded partnerships. The private owners may be the salt of the earth or the second coming of the guys from NY, Detroit and Chicago that came to Vegas for it relatively-speaking healthier climate and the legalizing of their home business. And that creates a problem of perception—real or imagined. It also spreads them across the map which tends to make them another kind of mob rather than an army. Uncoordinated is the kind way to describe them.
There is hope in all this. And, as people willing to gamble, that is often all we have. If they can get together and fund the PR and Lobbyist for themselves, they can reach the mainstream audience that their Dot-Net ads are angling for. Polls say that even most of the Bible belt bigots would be happy seeing them kicking into our tax base rather than kicking from the end of Congress' rope.
The $64 dollar question here is: can a bunch of greedy entities--each trying to hatch their own golden goose egg--join their efforts? It isn't the best choice of a group to have hopes on that on. But, its all we've got going for us.
Well, the French have joined the gambling witch hunt. My last name is Prevo which is an Americanizing of Prevost. That is French but if you don't know that it could be close to a lot of middle European names. I don't brag up the fact and it actually a minority part of my gene pool. The French seem to embarrass themselves at every turn--including yesterday at the UN. I have enough to embarrass myself over without falling back on that.
So, without pride, I read that the French have joined the indignation against gambling that isn't their own, licensed bit of profitability--joining another Napoleonic Code entity--Louisiana--in gambling self-righteousness.
The On-line poker rooms are a fairly recent phenomenon. There's a group that question it integrity--which is a carryover from the general view. It is unfortunate but founded in fact. Legal gambling was never found outside Nevada in our Puritanic past. Fallwell et al also have historic counterparts in the Billy Sunday crowd and right back to Cotton Mather. So it is doubtful gambling's nemesis will be going away or that some of their less attractive side will disappear with the loss of a born-again President.
When Las Vegas started to grow up, the states manage to put aside their puritanical ire and join in the greed with lotteries, riverboats and Indian Casinos while thinking they could maintain their righteousness. Politicians get as weird a collection of ideas as the rest of us.
To do the weirdness justice the politicians have to also play the suckers from both sides of the street. France it seems has joined that cause. They have licensed gambling entities as does Louisiana. They promote their good above all else. For France it is the EU hypocrisy of fairness until they see alternate profit. For Louisiana, it is shaking down the rest of America to get a city rebuilt that should either be bulldozed or reduced to a theme park to let them still get their riverboat cut and a bit of tourism with a combination of the two being the intelligent answer.
So, when you talk gambling in any form, you don't own the moral high-ground and you are faced with a political view that is disingenuous to say the least. So, what is our favorite poker room to do? At this point, it is screw up along with all the rest of us. The pols and media are popping out all the buzz words: crooked, money laundering, unreliable, etc. etc. etc. And, they are so quiet it looks like they have something to hide.
Las Vegas has surmounted the Puritans using PR firms and lobby groups. That gets no wrath from the Politicians. Instead it gives them a warm glow in the coffers. Maybe, online poker with its developing relationship to the casino big boys is hoping they'll bail them out. But, the fact is the only benefit Vegas sees is the added traffic and they are pretty good at building that on their own. If the poker boom died tomorrow, it would likely increase their take by letting them reduce payroll and put more profitable per square foot slots in its place.
The online folks are spread from across the globe—from the funny names in the Caribbean to the ones in the Mediterranean where we say, “That's a country?” to a few legit countries we don't need an atlas to find. Dutch Boyd started the tradition of suspicious online ownership and while there are a few public companies that can claim audited reliability the rest are in clouded partnerships. The private owners may be the salt of the earth or the second coming of the guys from NY, Detroit and Chicago that came to Vegas for it relatively-speaking healthier climate and the legalizing of their home business. And that creates a problem of perception—real or imagined. It also spreads them across the map which tends to make them another kind of mob rather than an army. Uncoordinated is the kind way to describe them.
There is hope in all this. And, as people willing to gamble, that is often all we have. If they can get together and fund the PR and Lobbyist for themselves, they can reach the mainstream audience that their Dot-Net ads are angling for. Polls say that even most of the Bible belt bigots would be happy seeing them kicking into our tax base rather than kicking from the end of Congress' rope.
The $64 dollar question here is: can a bunch of greedy entities--each trying to hatch their own golden goose egg--join their efforts? It isn't the best choice of a group to have hopes on that on. But, its all we've got going for us.
