Can a World Poker Ombudsman run the live and especially the online poker industry and sites? Or will it eventually be seen and realised that due to all the different gambling licensing jurisdictions the only way to protect poker players is with each country having its own regulated poker market/industry?
How can a World Poker Ombudsman control, persuade, penalise and guide all the different jurisdictions? From Gibraltar, Malta, Kahnawake to those countries like Denmark and France where the government of the country has already regulated their online gaming industry?
Due to the more and more countries looking to protect their own tax interests and sort of protect their own countrymen the idea of a World Poker Ombudsman would already seem dead. Perhaps not for live poker but certainly for online Poker.
Country jurisdictions like Gibraltar, Malta, Kahnawake etc have already seemed to prove that they can not control rogue sites. Or perhaps it has to be remembered what a jurisdiction like Alderney or Malta’s LGA actually are.
A Local Shop for Local People
The industry is still amazingly new and learning all the time. Rakeback, poker networks leakage etc show how we are still learning about what is good or bad. Alderney is a tiny island so to expect them to have much online gaming experience is stupid. The people they employ, especially at the start, are locals. They are not poker lovers of fanatics. They are civil servants who have very likely got a job through their uncle or contacts.
The same for Malta where the LGA jobs like most Maltese Government Agencies depends on which type of Government is in power and if your family is connected to them. We won’t even start to mention the corruption that riddled (or riddles?) the LGA.
Then you have the Kahnawake Gaming Commission who seem to live for the white mans poker fire water. They even gave Full Tilt Poker a license when Alderney had suspended them. Then not to mention in detail the Dutch Antilles or other ‘jurisdictions’.
Poker Govern mental?
Will the only saviour for online pokers life, character, reputation be the regulation of each countries online poker market? Where players are protected because that countries Government can and does have the power to scare or demand that the online poker companies do follow procedures and rules?
Each country being its own individual poker room will not be good but with them all able to play together in super states, groups or like PokerStars where they can be taxed then this should resolve the issues of liquidity.
Is it already the start of the end of online jurisdictions? The higher tax rates may be a massive disadvantage to the poker room operators who can not offer rakeback or good promotions but if this means the protection of online poker players from dodgy or rogue poker rooms then is this not worth the long term price to pay to protect the good name of poker and the industry in the long term?
USA USA USA!
Will the USA through their greed be the actual saviour of the online poker industry?
Will they have unwittingly through their actions have created the conditions to actually protect the long term future of online poker players and the industry? For a country that does not seem to understand the humour of irony how ironic would that be?
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