The Most Important Thing The United States Could Do Right Now Is Legalize Online Poker Nation Wide
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Times are tough right now. There's no doubt about it, and I don't want to sugarcoat it in any way. We are living in weird times, scary times even, with a lot of unknown waters ahead of us. How rough will the seas get, we wonder. How long will the storm last, we ponder. How many more days, weeks, months will be in isolation, we question. There are a lot more questions than answers right now, that is for sure. But I do have one answer. The question is "what could the federal government do right now that would make everyone who is stuck at home happier?" And the answer is legalize online poker.
Just revert to the time before April 11, 2011 when online poker as we knew it was alive and booming. I don't care about the red tape and politics and all of that- right now states can choose to regulate online or not, but the laws take years to pass and be implemented. I'm over it. Just federally legalize it and let the major online sites open their borders to every state. Figure out the other stuff later. The money will be there. But get it started now. We could have a country playing online by next week.
Yes I know this is unrealistic...but at the same time...it's possible. Crazier things have happened overnight. One second weed is as illegal as crack cocaine and now weed is legal basically everywhere. Things change rapidly if we want it to.
Legalizing online poker could be the most important thing to the US economy and well being right now. None of us can leave the house. There's no sports. No movies. No nothing. Let us have some poker tournaments for Pete's sake. Let us use our own money to see some flops. There's no crime in that. There's no harm. Just hard working Americans finding a release in online poker, ain't nothing wrong with that.
Right now you can only play online legally in Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. That's a fucking JOKE. 4 states where it's legal and regulated. Otherwise to play you have to use unregulated sites that have bots, are hard to get money on and off of, and that are untrustworthy to say the least. People always ask me where to play and I don't recommend any of the offshore sites. I just cannot suggest people put their money on any of them.
So it's time for our government to do the right thing. Executive power it right through. Make online poker federally legal tomorrow and the world will be a better place. If not you are on team coronavirus. Your move, @unitedstates.
And hey, guess what, we just put up episode 50 (!!!) of Cracking Aces. I can't believe we're 50 deep now. It's the best poker podcast out there. On today's episode we talk some Coronavirus, how to improve and study poker while you're home, WSOP thoughts, and much more. It's sort of a MicksTape-esque right now, just chatting about what's going on in the world while also mixing in some poker as well. I appreciate anyone who checks it out. And hey, we have 50 episodes to catch up on if you're stuck at home. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll get to know some of the biggest names in poker. It's good stuff. If you dig it, leave a 5 star review on iTunes, that's always appreciated.