The Irish Goverment needs to BanOnline poker.

TwoShedsJackson

trailerparkboy wrote: »

Thats not what the banks think, they will think degenerate gamblers of anyone who has regular amounts going to online poker or Bookie sites. So it wouls appear my dear man that the simple answer is no yo wont get a mortgage.

Coming from the man who lost 14k at poker online, this is classic.

pebbles21

OP sounds a bit like a reformed smoker but does a have point to make

About 25 years ago (way before the internet)Poker machines in amusement arcades were banned because of the huge amount of people addicted to them and the sorrow they caused to themselves and their families

I should know i was one of the many young guys who spent their entire wages all to frequently on a friday night on the way home from work ,and personally knew a guy who took his life and in his suicide note blamed it on these machines

Afaik the Sunday World ran a massive campaign to get them banned and succeeded but i think after a few years some arcade owners found a loophole in the ban and brought them back

But for me and i imagine thousands like me it was a god sent when they were banned as it stopped the rot that was getting way out of control

jhegarty

pebbles21 wrote: »

OP sounds a bit like a reformed smoker but does a have point to make

About 25 years ago (way before the internet)Poker machines in amusement arcades were banned because of the huge amount of people addicted to them and the sorrow they caused to themselves and their families

I should know i was one of the many young guys who spent their entire wages all to frequently on a friday night on the way home from work ,and personally knew a guy who took his life and in his suicide note blamed it on these machines

Afaik the Sunday World ran a massive campaign to get them banned and succeeded but i think after a few years some arcade owners found a loophole in the ban and brought them back

But for me and i imagine thousands like me it was a god sent when they were banned as it stopped the rot that was getting way out of control

But the machines you are talking about are fixed odds gaming machines. They have nothing in common the game that the op wants banned.

trailerparkboy

I wont give up on this, i feel so strongly that online poker needs to be banned that im gonna go on tomorrows Joe Duffy show, and i will tell the nation that im considering running in the next general election on a platform of getting online poker banned in this country.

jhegarty

trailerparkboy wrote: »

I wont give up on this, i feel so strongly that online poker needs to be banned that im gonna go on tomorrows Joe Duffy show, and i will tell the nation that im considering running in the next general election on a platform of getting online poker banned in this country.

Can you please just answer one question.

Why only online poker , why not all betting , gambling and games of chance ?

pebbles21

jhegarty wrote: »

But the machines you are talking about are fixed odds gaming machines. They have nothing in common the game that the op wants banned.

Fair enough but the point he is trying to make is similar

trailerparkboy

jhegarty wrote: »

Can you please just answer one question.

Why only online poker , why not all betting , gambling and games of chance ?

Because online poker is the craic cocaine of gambling and many studies have revealed this, its the most addictive of all forms of gambling.

buzzymam

im married to a recovering compulsive gambler and I can tell you that banning onlne poker would not change a thing.

If you have an addiction to gambling then that does not just stop if your online access is limited, there are plenty of other outlets to go and blow the mortage payment or food money on.

Banning online poker would be a waste of time and grossly unfair to the majority of players who are not compulsive addicted gamblers.

Better off putting some more support and counseling services in place.

jhegarty

trailerparkboy wrote: »

Because online poker is the craic cocaine of gambling and many studies have revealed this, its the most addictive of all forms of gambling.

Point to one study that says this.

buzzymam

Im married to a recovering compulsive gambler and I can tell you that banning onlne poker would not change a thing.

If you have an addiction to gambling then that does not just stop if your online access is limited, there are plenty of other outlets to go and blow the mortage payment or food money on.

Banning online poker would be a waste of time and grossly unfair to the majority of players who are not compulsive addicted gamblers.

Better off putting some more support and counseling services in place.

jhegarty

buzzymam wrote: »

im married to a recovering compulsive gambler and I can tell you that banning onlne poker would not change a thing.

If you have an addiction to gambling then that does not just stop if your online access is limited, there are plenty of other outlets to go and blow the mortage payment or food money on.

Banning online poker would be a waste of time and grossly unfair to the majority of players who are not compulsive addicted gamblers.

Better off putting some more support and counseling services in place.

Great post. A compulsive gambler will loose his house betting on two flies climbing up a wall.

Banning drink won't stop alcoholics, banning online poker will not stop compulsive gamblers.

Hope everything goes well for you and your husband.

newbie2

Does the OP want to ban just online poker or all poker?
Does he want to ban all online gaming or just online poker?
Does this include online video poker?

Oh Oh - newbie2 has joined in........;)

jhegarty

newbie2 wrote: »

Does the OP want to ban just online poker or all poker?
Does he want to ban all online gaming or just online poker?
Does this include online video poker?

Oh Oh - newbie2 has joined in........;)

Just online poker because he has a study that shows it is the worst type of gambling.

I am sure he will follow the forum rules and post details of the study shortly. :rolleyes:

newbie2

is this it?

eagle eye

gimme5minutes wrote: »

Id like to hear your answer to the following question. Seeing as how trailerparkboy just avoided it again and undermined himself even more. Should alchohol, cigarettes and bookmakers be banned in Ireland? These things take a huge amount of money from the Irish public, way way more than online poker ever has or will. Cigarettes and alcohol are also the cause, directly and indirectly, of a huge number of deaths in Irish society every year which put them an another level altogether danger-wise to bookmakers and online poker.

Although they do contribute tax to the exchequer. The same as the poker sites that are based here contribute tax, for example paddypower, boylesports and full tilt. So if you have such a problem with online poker and people exercising their free will in playing it, I take it you must have an even bigger problem with people enjoying things like alcohol, cigarettes and bookmakers of their own free will? Or is there some reason why it is ok to enjoy these activities of your own free will while it's not ok to enjoy online poker?

I was only putting up points and took the anti side as nobody else would but I do have concerns about the online poker world. I actually play quite a lot of poker and I'm doing ok at it, not making a fortune from it. My main source of income is betting.

The main one is underage gambling. Now as far as drinking and smoking is concerned and bookmakers, you have to produce identification to purchase cigarettes, alcohol and similary to place a bet in a shop.
Thats a stark contrast to online poker where contrary to whats been said you don't need any form of identification to place a bet. I'm not sure what the situation is with purchasing alcohol and cigerattes online, thats another days work. This cannot go on and there is very little being done about stopping it. That guy Red Devil or some name like that came on and spouted a load of half truths last night. You need id to withdraw from gambling accounts online but not to bet. In fact a 12 year old child could lose as much as they want without being asked for identifation. Thats bloody scary.
Cheating is another thing that I'm worried about. In most cases with cheating they look at the players involved and see if they are normally at the same tables, if there are transfers between accounts and stuff like that. In all fairness if you know what you are at you can bypass these checks pretty easily. You don't have to sit at the same table all the time as the other player. You could play 2,000 hands and play extremely tight at other tables and pretty much break even or make a small loss and then cheat for about 300 hands or so, then go back and play another 2000 hands separately, and don't ever transfer funds between accounts obviously. And clearly you would play at different times for a decent sample of these hands so that the accounts are not always online at the same time. You would need discipline to do this but its very workable and its pretty much undetectable.

Again you go in to a live poker room and everything is above board, well it is in any cardroom/casino I've played in. Its not like you have some computer hacker who has software that allows him see all the hands at the table or even two or three hands. I'm not saying that there never was or never will be players attempting to cheat live but they are easily caught out.

So really there is a lot of work to be done and it seems to me that nobody is in any rush to do it. Its only through forums that the bigger cheating scams are discovered and thats because you have very intelligent players who track all their hands and can analyse them and see these problems.
Again though its the underage thing that would be my primary concern. If they can't stop it then they should be shut down imo until such time as they are capable of doing it.

trailerparkboy

jhegarty wrote: »

Just online poker because he has a study that shows it is the worst type of gambling.

I am sure he will follow the forum rules and post details of the study shortly. :rolleyes:

Sorry about that here is a link to one such study. http://www.casinogamblingweb.com/gambling-news/online-poker/problem_gambling_study_reveals_highest_risk_for_online_poker_players_47044.html

newbie2

That's a link to an article about a study. Where's the link to the study?

FWIW: the last line in that article is:

Study after study has been produced, and no matter how anyone defines problem gambling, the truth is that poker is a very addictive game, and without the proper regulations for online providers, many families and careers will be ruined, and that is the concern that governments should be focusing on, not anti online gambling laws.

jhegarty

trailerparkboy wrote: »

Sorry about that here is a link to one such study. http://www.casinogamblingweb.com/gambling-news/online-poker/problem_gambling_study_reveals_highest_risk_for_online_poker_players_47044.html

From your own proof :

Legalizing drugs is not an option, but legalizing and regulating online poker is, and if governments truly want to decrease the amount of problem gamblers, then they need to look into how to regulate the industry so that problem gambling on poker can be avoided.

So basically you think online poker should be regulated ?

trailerparkboy

I was browsing on the poker forum and its so sad to see people encouging people to gamble on there, most posters are young men who i fear for there future if they continue gambling. Poker needs to be banned and Banned now, hoopefully i can raise awarness of this problem in the national media and hopefully produce a pettition to goverment to ban online poker.

eagle eye

trailerparkboy wrote: »

I was browsing on the poker forum and its so sad to see people encouging people to gamble on there, most posters are young men who i fear for there future if they continue gambling. Poker needs to be banned and Banned now, hoopefully i can raise awarness of this problem in the national media and hopefully produce a pettition to goverment to ban online poker.

From what I've read here you could well be a problem gambler.

If you are, a bit of advice, you should not be reading poker or gambling stuff at all. If you are indeed intent on doing something about it and you do have a problem then go and get help first and then pursue your goal of shutting down the whole thing.

SeanW

trailerparkboy wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0304/presswatch.html

Yes indeed thats the link, now id love to see some of the poker players go to there bank and argue that poker is a skill and not gambling, id love to see how far they would get.

And the key phrase from this is:

in particular if there were regular amounts going out.

which means you continue gambling and regularly topping up your online account - i.e. you keep losing and coming back for more, consistently over an extended period of time. I quite agree with any bank manager who decides to nix a mortgage application on this basis.

Now, I don't think anyone here said poker wasn't gambling but answer this:

If I place a wager that I will win a game of chess, is that gambling? or skill?
or both?
If I place large bets that I can beat Gary Kasparov at chess and keep losing, I'm a problem gambler, it also means that I do not have the skill to succed in my chosen wagers.

That wouldn't mean that we should ban chess.

Poker is much the same - if you remove the actual gambling from the game and just use make believe chips, the more skillful players will end up with a bigger pile. Just like if you went chair to chair with Gary Kasparov and recorded who won each match, he would end up recording a big pile of "win."

This is what people have tried to tell you that poker is a game of skill.

TwoShedsJackson

jhegarty wrote: »

Just online poker because he has a study that shows it is the worst type of gambling.

I am sure he will follow the forum rules and post details of the study shortly. :rolleyes:

It's just online poker becuase he's lost a decent sum of money at it. If he'd lost it at something else he'd probably be moaning about that.

ParkRunner

Interesting thread! I really enjoy playing poker and playing it online is so handy on rainy days like today. I have bet huge sums of money and I have won big and lost big, probably more than I can afford, not probably, definitely! Luckily it was all virtual money though

If you play for fun it's great I think and it would be wrong to ban online poker just because some engage in gluttony and get dazzled by the bright lights of big money! Saying that I do put money on the footie myself, never more than a few euro though, and you win some you lose some. It all comes down to personal responsibility really.

An election campaign based on the promise to ban online poker will get you about as far as opening up an online account and betting more than you can afford without really finding out if you are any good or not first. Education is what is needed not more legislation!

happyoutscan

EF wrote: »

Interesting thread! I really enjoy playing poker and playing it online is so handy on rainy days like today. I have bet huge sums of money and I have won big and lost big, probably more than I can afford, not probably, definitely! Luckily it was all virtual money though

If you play for fun it's great I think and it would be wrong to ban online poker just because some engage in gluttony and get dazzled by the bright lights of big money! Saying that I do put money on the footie myself, never more than a few euro though, and you win some you lose some. It all comes down to personal responsibility really.

An election campaign based on the promise to ban online poker will get you about as far as opening up an online account and betting more than you can afford without really finding out if you are any good or not first. Education is what is needed not more legislation!

Good post. What the OP needs to do is go sort himself out and leave the rest of us to our own devices. Personally I do not need the OPs misplaced concern for my personal welfare and his continued bitterness - fueled by his OWN lack of self-discipline - is rather tiring. Oops, gotta go, tourney time.

Quint

So trailerparkboy's only argument of banning this one form of gambling is that he lost money on it and thinks it's the "crack cocaine of gambling"?
Save yourself the effort, it won't be banned. Go gamblers anonomous and sort yourself.
Edit: sorry for the repeat, happyoutscan basically said the same thing above!

happyoutscan

Quint wrote: »

Edit: sorry for the repeat, happyoutscan basically said the same thing above!

Not at all, it's the most obvious response to the OP most can think of.

hobochris

trailerparkboy wrote: »

I was browsing on the poker forum and its so sad to see people encouging people to gamble on there, most posters are young men who i fear for there future if they continue gambling. Poker needs to be banned and Banned now, hoopefully i can raise awarness of this problem in the national media and hopefully produce a pettition to goverment to ban online poker.

If you ban one form of gambling you have to ban them all,otherwise this would be unfair.

also to be fair banks would have to stop loans/mortgages/investments as they are gambling on getting there money back.

a ban on online poker which would also mean a ban on all gambling(to be fair) would mean huge revenue losses for the government and crippling our economy as most economic activities involve a gamble.

You obviously haven't thought this through.

Ste05

I'm looking forward to hearing Joe Duffy today, I wonder will our hero appear???

NilByMouth

trailerparkboy wrote: »

My many thanks to all the people who have thanked my orignal post. I intent on lobbying TDS on this Issue and going on to talk to the media about the damage that poker is doing to Ireland. Im just starting at the moment but my intention is to make a website and setup a lobbying organisation similiar to the ones that deal with drinking.

Havent laughed this much in ages:pac:

You go do that trailerbhoy;)

Quint

Ste05 wrote: »

I'm looking forward to hearing Joe Duffy today, I wonder will our hero appear???

I reckon Joe or the researchers asked the same question everyone else here asked: "Why only online poker and not all gambling?" and his "crack cocaine of gambling" answer wasn't good enough.