Online Betting

[Darveesh]

I would like to know whether it is still legal for US residents/citizens
to place bets online ... as long the sites are hosted overseas.

I was thinking about doing this on sites like Tradesports (http://tradesports.com),
or Intrade (http://www.intrade.com).
Their customer service dept says that, while *most* of their customers
are based in the US, they cannot and will not give legal advice.
I also remember hearing that there was a bill in Congress aimed at banning
US citizens from online gambling (or something similar to this).

Any insights?

 

[Stax]

with the caveat that recent federal legislation regulating internet gambling has not been subject to enough litigation to really get a feel for how the entire statutory scheme should be interpreted, the simple answer is yes, internet gambling in the US is illegal.

 

[DNW]

Originally Posted by Stax

with the caveat that recent federal legislation regulating internet gambling has not been subject to enough litigation to really get a feel for how the entire statutory scheme should be interpreted, the simple answer is yes, internet gambling in the US is illegal.

+1

 

[Stax]

I'll will add, however, that former Senator Alphonse D'Amato has been made chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, a DC based nonprofit online poker advocacy group made up of amateurs and professional players. D'Amato will be lobbying for a poker exception to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Congressman Barney Frank is also making noise about an amendment. I doubt we will see anything worthwhile before the '08 election, however.

 

[Darveesh]

... Not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for clearing that up

 

[tiecollector]

It has always technically been illegal though hasn't it? Either way, I know many people who have written programs to play party poker for them and it earns them a meager $30/hr, 24 hours a day.

Last year or so Congress snuck in some legislation in the middle of the night into a port security bill or some nonsense trying to limit online gambling further. shady.

 

[Darveesh]

For some reason I was thinking that the law would make a distinction between
online poker, blackjack, etc and betting on events or sports results ...

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by Darveesh

For some reason I was thinking that the law would make a distinction between
online poker, blackjack, etc and betting on events or sports results ...

Bush used to own the Rangers, so I'm sure betting on sporting events won't be affected.

 

[Augusto86]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

It has always technically been illegal though hasn't it? Either way, I know many people who have written programs to play party poker for them and it earns them a meager $30/hr, 24 hours a day.

Last year or so Congress snuck in some legislation in the middle of the night into a port security bill or some nonsense trying to limit online gambling further. shady.
Are you ******** me??? $30/HR???? For writing some code?

Where can I get in on this?

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by Augusto86

Are you ******** me??? $30/HR???? For writing some code?

Where can I get in on this?

partypoker.com (I think it was)

It isn't *just* code really. They bought some high powered computer clusters to run statistical simulations and those results power the decision engine on the partpoker game hooks. When they want to make big bucks they have 10 windows open and for iffy plays, they do those manually. Many people do this actually. I've thought about doing it myself but I've been too busy with other things. One day everyone will be doing this, but I don't really like the idea, part of the appeal of poker is playing mindgames with opponents.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

partypoker.com (I think it was)

It isn't *just* code really. They bought some high powered computer clusters to run statistical simulations and those results power the decision engine on the partpoker game hooks. When they want to make big bucks they have 10 windows open and for iffy plays, they do those manually. Many people do this actually. I've thought about doing it myself but I've been too busy with other things. One day everyone will be doing this, but I don't really like the idea, part of the appeal of poker is playing mindgames with opponents.

That's a really good idea. It seems to me that a computer would be great for something like poker or blackjack since so much is tied to probability, unlike chess, for instance. It would be especially true for online play where the human element is largely taken out of the equation. A program that was smart enough would just grind it out based on probabilities.

I'm curious about those sites though.. Are most people on them total amateurs, or are there good players? Or is skill largely negated by the fact that it's online?

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

That's a really good idea. It seems to me that a computer would be great for something like poker or blackjack since so much is tied to probability, unlike chess, for instance. It would be especially true for online play where the human element is largely taken out of the equation. A program that was smart enough would just grind it out based on probabilities.

I'm curious about those sites though.. Are most people on them total amateurs, or are there good players? Or is skill largely negated by the fact that it's online?

There are some mega pros on those sites. You ever sat and watched a high stakes game where they are beetting $10,000 a hand? Pretty nuts. There are many amateurs from all over the world too.

I think the only thing taken out of the equation is the mind games and brick and mortar presence. Other than that, you can have a 99.9% chance of winning a hand, but you still gotta have the cards at the end.

I'm sure any poker newsgroup is a good place to start meeting people. I suck at poker right now, but I wonder if you could just hardcode all possible hand distributions and write a program to play based on those. I bet, in a low stake game, that you'd be able to do pretty well in cleaning house.

From what I hear, there are on days and off days, some days you'll make thousands, other days you'll lose thousands.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

From what I hear, there are on days and off days, some days you'll make thousands, other days you'll lose thousands.

Which is the advantage of a program based on probabilities. It doesn't start doubting itself when things aren't going so well. You'd better hope it's not buggy though!

There's probably a higher distribution of total amateurs in the low-stakes games so I agree that they would be a great place to test it. I was looking at the site pretty quickly and also noticed they had no-betting game, but I'm not sure if it's against computers or players.

I'm definitely gonna think about this some more when I have a bit more time.

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

Which is the advantage of a program based on probabilities. It doesn't start doubting itself when things aren't going so well. You'd better hope it's not buggy though! There's probably a higher distribution of total amateurs in the low-stakes games so I agree that they would be a great place to test it. I was looking at the site pretty quickly and also noticed they had no-betting game, but I'm not sure if it's against computers or players. I'm definitely gonna think about this some more when I have a bit more time.
Yeah, they do have "for fun" lounges and it is between people, but it doesn't matter, cards are cards. You could try it out on that. Not sure which sites allow you to write your own hooks, or if none do and what they use is a hack. Seems here is a hack right here: http://forum.madshi.net/viewtopic.php?t=4019 Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat and if you really wanted to do it, you could.

 

[MrRogers]

Before clothing, devising and testing strategies for playing online and live roulette was a huge hobby/obsession of mine. About 2 years ago I stumbled on a strategy that worked very well in testing but statistical analysis showed that it crashed and burned when played over 1,000,000 spins of the wheel. I took a shot and spent maybe 1-2 hrs daily playing at an online casino. From a 100$ deposit I eventually cashed out 10K+ over the course of 3 months before I got an email from the website thanking me for my play and closing my account.

From what I understand, none of the online services will allow US residents to transfer $$ to any online casino. The only way to make a deposit would be to send a check or MO to the actual establishment. Be forewarned though that most online casino's are crooked and pull all kinds of BS to get your money.

MrR