Internet poker could be legalized

Florida legislators are hoping to capitalize on one of the country's major addictions as a way to fix the economy without forcing people to sit at a typical card table.

A proposed bill, House Bill 77  "Internet Poker Consumer Protection & Revenue Generation Act of 2011,"  would legalize Internet poker and bring much needed revenue to the state's economy.

Florida Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, who proposed the bill along with other representatives, wants casinos, dog and horse tracks and jai-alai arenas to have connections to online poker rooms that the state would reap a portion of the revenues from.

While it's not illegal to play Internet poker, it's against federal law for a U.S. company to run an online poker room for money.

According to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, transactions from banks or similar institutions to online gambling sites are illegal for the purpose of online poker.

"There are hundreds of thousands of players in Florida in unregulated and unprotected offshore sites," said Abruzzo, as reported by the Sun-Sentinel. "Why not legalize, regulate and bring in revenue from something that's already occurring?"

One of the major components of the act is that it's illegal for people to link their credit cards to online poker websites.

Many people in the U.S. play poker on offshore sites because the countries where the online companies are located have a broad range of much more lenient regulations and fees. One of the biggest online poker companies in the world, PokerStars.com, is located in the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.

According to John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, there are eight to ten million Americans that play online through offshore accounts; about 400,000 of them are Floridians, as reported by the Sun-Sentinel.

One of those 400,000 Floridians is UCF student Brandon Blackman.

Blackman, a senior pre-clinical allied health major, has been playing poker since his freshman year in high school.

Blackman thinks that H.B. 77 could affect students in that it would drag them to casinos or house-organized poker tournaments because it would give players no choice if the state were to control online gambling.

"If anything, this bill could affect students negatively in that it'll make it harder for us to play online," Blackman said. "Because we would have to go through all these state rules, in the end, it'll be the state that determines when and where we would have to play, but the bill wouldn't decrease gambling at all."

According to the proposed bill, players would click on one of Florida's 23 pari-mutuels sites and go into a pool of other Florida players. The state would then receive 10 percent of the revenues, and the Florida pari-mutuels would use special software to block out-of-state IP addresses.

H.B. 77, which would take effect July 1 if passed,  comes at a time when many addiction counselors are seeing an increase of Internet poker addiction among college students.

According to the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, Florida college kids are twice as likely as the general population to become compulsive online gamblers.

"I began playing poker pretty much like every other kid," Blackman said. "One random day in high school when I became curious about poker and decided to learn."

Blackman, who also had friends who were just getting into online poker at the time as well, said he understood the addictive potential in gambling.

"After time, though, I can see why people can get really hooked on the feeling to win or lose money quickly," Blackman said. "I have friends who had to drop out of school because of their [poker] addiction."

The director of Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Programming at UCF, Tom Hall, believes that H.B. 77 could become a problem for students.

"The anonymity of Internet gambling is already a concern since it is done in isolation with no one to observe and identify a developing gambling problem," Hall said. "Research has substantiated that the proximity and accessibility to gambling opportunities affects the number of those who gamble and the number of individuals who will develop a gambling problem."

Hall believes that college students could easily become victims of online gambling, and that such addiction is very critical because realizing it can be very misleading.

"Based upon increasing numbers of calls to help lines from college students, we know that college gambling addiction is on the rise," Hall said. "Internet gambling is the most youth-friendly form of gambling available. It's available where most college students live today, and it's presented in a format that makes students feel very comfortable."

Regional Campus Director of SGA Daniel Compte doesn't think the bill is going to pass, and if it did, the state would barely receive any revenue.

"I don't think the bill will pass because of past occurrences where the state keeps wanting to legalize online poker but the people don't," Compte said.

"Florida is a conservative state and from an ethical perspective this could bring several implications along the way."