lets all thank Congress for protecting us from our own decisions

R

Redworm

Moderator
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,217039,00.html

:rolleyes:

Online Gambling Shares Fall as Congress OKs Bill


LONDON — Online gambling firms faced their biggest-ever crisis on Monday after U.S. Congress passed legislation to end Internet gaming there, threatening jobs and wiping 3.5 billion pounds ($6.5 billion) off company values.

Britain's PartyGaming Plc, operator of leading Internet poker site PartyPoker.com, and rivals Sportingbet and 888 Plc said they would likely pull out of the United States, their biggest source of revenue.

"This development is a significant setback for our company, our shareholders, our players and our industry," PartyGaming Chief Executive Mitch Garber said.

The House of Representatives and Senate unexpectedly approved a bill early on Saturday that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The measure was sent to President George W. Bush to sign into law, which most analysts see as a certainty.

"We believe that this will have a very material impact on the long-term prospects of online gambling, and in particular poker," said analyst Julian Easthope at UBS. "This will lead to a rapid decline in the use of online poker sites."


PartyGaming generates about 78 percent of its revenue from the United States, while Sportingbet gets about 62 percent there.

CRACKDOWN

Shares in PartyGaming, which rakes in nearly $4 million a day from its 19 million customers, fell 57 percent by 1155 GMT.

Sportingbet, which owns sportsbook.com and ParadisePoker.com, lost 60 percent, 888 was down 33 percent and Austria's bwin.com fell 24 percent.

Bwin could be pushed to the brink, having paid heavily for Swedish online poker site Ongame earlier this year to gain access to the U.S. market, said Leopold Salcher, an analyst at Austria's RCB. "This could break their neck," he said.

Online gaming exploded in 2005 with a string of high-profile company flotations in London, which has become the industry's corporate center.

The bulk of revenue has always come from U.S. players, but the firms were located in offshore jurisdictions like Costa Rica and Antigua for fear of prosecution in the United States, where the legal status of online gaming and betting was uncertain.

Shares in Sportingbet and BETonSPORTS had already been hammered after recent arrests of senior executives on charges of illegal gambling in individual U.S. states, but investors remained hopeful online betting and gaming would not be completely banned at a federal level.

Meanwhile, big American corporations like Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment Inc. were forced to sit on the sidelines as gaming money streamed out of the country.

PartyGaming said in a statement, "If the President signs the act into law, the company will suspend all real money gaming business with U.S. residents."

"Any such suspension would also result in the group's financial performance falling significantly short of consensus forecasts for 2006 and 2007," it added.

MERGER SCRAPPED

Stephen Whittaker, joint chief investment officer at Britain's New Star Asset Management, said the likely ban could be challenged.

"This represents protectionism, and the WTO have said you can't do that," said Whittaker, whose portfolio includes about 2 percent of online gaming stocks. "Overall, we'll probably remain with most of our holdings."

"We'll probably reduce one, maybe two," he added. "We want to let the dust settle a bit -- it will take a few days."

Sportingbet said a ban would hit trading and it would scrap a planned merger with World Gaming as a result.

888 Plc said the move would hit its results, as did gaming software provider Playtech, whose shares fell 42 percent.

But Paul Leyland at Arbuthnot Securities said Playtech was relatively well positioned. "The only company for which you could categorically say that redeployment is easy is Playtech," he said. "But for the others it's much more difficult."

A ban would also hit payment processors such as Neteller Plc and Optimal Group's FireOne subsidiary.
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Isn't it nice that our babysitters are making sure we don't make any mistakes with our hard earned money? It's so comforting to know that there are such nice folk like Senator Stevens and Rep. Foley to keep nasty smoke out of my lungs and trans fats out of my food and to make sure that the only undeserving recipient of my income is good ole Uncle Sam.

Has the concept of personal responsibility simply escaped people? Do we really need laws telling us we can't eat goose liver or play online poker? Is it such a horrific thing to hear a four letter word on the radio or see a nipple on cable? Should our elected servants really be wasting their time creating more nanny laws like this?

In spirit of freedom I'm going to blow 20 bucks on an online poker game. If I lose I won't shed a tear considering the last time I played online poker I wound up over $600 richer than when I started. Thank goodness the government is soon going to protect me from that...
 
1. Protection of brick&mortar gambling venues
2. A bad law that was assured passage only because it was attached to the Safe Ports Act

I am so sick of the moral police in government. While most gambling is a net-loss proposition (playing against the house, which uses a fixed strategy that is statistically superior to any that a player can use), poker is a prime example of one that is not.

I haven't read the new law. Does it prohibit opening a foreign bank account, transferring money from a U.S. account to the foreign account, and using that money to fund online gambling? Could someone transfer that money back into the U.S., as long as it's declared properly to the IRS?
 
Dang. I was about to put $50 on the Saints to win the superbowl. Guess I'll just have to walk over to the casino instead...

This stinks for people without a casino right down the street, though.
 
Bill, I'm a saints fan too but you might as well send me that money right now...I can be a downpayment on your new bridge :D
 
1. Protection of brick&mortar gambling venues
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THAT's what it's about. This law is akin to 922r with guns - it's stupid, but at least it makes a *little* sense in terms of protectionism of American companies (to the extent you believe protectionism is a good idea). 922r arguably infringes our RKBA, but not really, because nothing is stopping American firms from making the offending guns. This sorta protects from our own stupidity (gambling), but not really, because the gamblers are just gonna find a way to blow their money here in the USA in gambling concerns. This helps the Indian tribes in places like my state, and helps of course places like las vegas, atlantic city, and miss. river gambling boats, state lottos, etc. - the substitutes.

And of course, I say "protect us from our own studpidity" tongue in cheek, because such a thing is not what the government is there for, especially the federal government. Gambling is an entertainment hobby, just like any other. And just like any other, it can be taken too far and abused by people with addictive personalities. But so can shopping. We gonna place a limit on the amount someone can spend in one day, to protect them from their own shopping spree addictions?

Protectionsim. This would not have passed had these been American firms raking in all those millions each day, instead of British firms.

I heard our rubber stamp President was anxious to sign this one - keeping us safe from ourselves.
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You got that straight! The only thing he's vetoed in SIX YEARS as prez. is the bill to fund the eradiction of disease, via research, by using stem cells left over from fertility clinics, which *would have been thrown in the trash* instead, and which will in fact now be thrown in the trash, without the funding to use them in research. So not a single embryo will be "saved" by that veto, but forward progress is halted to make the Christian right happy. Sorry, mini-hijack - now back to your regularly-scheduled programming. :)
 
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