This hullabaloo over the Internet “Online Gambling is bad” Law seems to have struck the online poker community hard. Party has already waved the white flag, Pacific waved it as well (but nobody noticed). Other sites have taken to issuing press releases and panicked letters to their depositors saying, in essence, “Please don’t ask for your money back”.

Now my opinion isn’t as useful or influential as Bill’s or Iggy’s or Pauly’s, but I try to view these situations as “opportunities”, so bear with me while I talk out loud about the potential benefits.

1) Sites need to promote “Deposit into our site NOW so you can avoid the lockdown!” All news stories seem to focus on the “you can still withdraw money, you just can’t deposit for the purposes of betting”. If I were FTP or PokerStars, I would pound this home offering HUGE bonus opportunities with severe raking requirements.

2) There are also big opportunities for money laundering schemes as well. For example, a Canadian-based bank can deal freely with the online gambling sites. Look for a rush on Canadian (and Mexican) post office boxes. I would suspect some foreign entrepreneur is probably already selling access (via bogus overseas addresses) to degenerate US gamblers.

3) Here’s a scenario. Let’s say toddpoker.net (based in, say, Aruba or even Canada) is offering freeroll tournaments if you have a minimum of a $50 credit balance at, say, toddbuystuff.net (a site where you can buy teddy bears). You get that by paying $55 for a $5 bear, and you have a credit in your account of $50. Now you’re qualified for a freeroll poker tournament where the prize is a funded account at toddpoker.net for $50. We pay all ten seats the same. Remember, you spent the money on a teddy bear, so you’re not depositing money in a gambling account… Anyway, after a certain time frame, you can withdraw money from toddpoker.net equal to your credit amount at toddbuystuff.net while we send two larger teddy bears from toddbuystuff.net to relieve the credit balance.

Since toddpoker.net is an overseas operation, you can withdraw money from it freely (or so they tell us). Since you received three cuddly teddy bears for your $75, your money didn’t “technically” go to the gambling site. If anyone implements such a view, I get a cut. If it’s illegal in any way, shape, or form, I don’t know anything about it.