Poker Research Paper

So for my english class I got a 7 page research paper. This is what I have so far. any comments or if I have any facts wrong let me know :D Sorry for typos... I actually DONT have spell check.

A way of life on the Line

The game of poker is on its way to being America?s new pastime. It is estimated that over 60 million people play poker in the US, and in 2009 2.1 million people tuned in to watch the World Series of Poker on television. By comparision 42 million people play baseball and 9.8 million people watch the 2008 World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays. Thousands of poker players walk into highstakes casino games or play online over the internet and call this game a profession. With this large of population why would congress outlaw all gambling over the internet? Congress had numerous reasons for their ruling. One of which, they safely assumed that not every poker player online was living and playing in America. From this fact the U.S. might be taking a loss of revenue in the U.S. both in the form of taxes and money exiting the country through international players. A majority of ?internet casinos? before the outlawing of internet gambling, and still, are based outside of the United States. The government can?t regulate all the specifics and operations these internet casinos, such as the machines shuffling the cards and tracking potential cheaters, like they are able to do in a brick and motar casino. The justices are not just seemingly taking away from the players they are also out to protect the players. To be able to deposit into your account players would have to give up their credit card, or bank account numbers to these overseas unregulated operations. The Supreme Court just recently, late 2011, released a memo saying that the states were authorized to regulate online gambling within their own borders. Even more recently, 2013, a piece of legislation the Internet Poker Freedom Act of 2013 will establish a program allowing states and federally recognized tribes to allow online gambling. The United States of America needs to continue on this path of legalizing internet poker in a broad spectrum range. They need to allow the billions of tied up funds to be released back to their rightful owners, the players.

The history leading up from its creation to even to this day is seeping with seediness. The exact orgins of poker are a mystery with many different theories but the earliest accounts of poker as it is today can be traced to a game played around the 1830?s in New Orleans with a 20 card deck. Poker exploded in popularity in the 1970?s at Vegas casinos, by the route of tournaments played with such games as Hold em and 5 card stud. The earliest televised poker games were not very popular and consisted manly of the player with an after hand commentary. The 21st century exploded the poker scene with the televised invention of ?hole? cameras, tiny cameras installed into the table that allowed viewers to see the cards as they were being played. This turned a spectartor sport into one that could be followed along as the hand unfolded in sync with what was happening on the television. Around this time internet poker was becoming a big hit. The influx of regular people at home now watching and learning poker on television shows could now play for real money without ever leaving their house, often for as little as 1/2 cent blinds. Online poker was legal up until the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Poker and more specifcally online poker continued gaining popularity even with this passing with many sites still in operation. That was until what is deemed as the worst day in poker history. On April 12, 2011 a federal court case against the three largest online poker sites was unsealed and their respective US sites shutdown locking many players out of their accounts and unable to withdrawl collective billions.

A law was orginally passed in 1961 called the Federal Wire Act, the law prohibited sports betting or trasnfering money as a result from contests to overseas entities. This piece of legislation, suggested by Robert F. Kennedy and signed into law by John F. Kennedy in 1961, had to sole purpose of stopping organized crime from laundering money. Since then it has became the basis of other laws for the purpose of taxing regulations. Specifically the money from internet gambling is unable to be tracked and was only voulentary claimed on the W-2G tax form. After Supreme court ruled that a federal ban on internet gambling was illeagle a piece of legislation was introduced to congress in June of 2011 Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2011 (H.R. 2230.) (Online Gambling). If signed into law this bill would require online operators to pay a 2% federal tax, and possibly up to a 6% state tax. Currently it is assumed the current gambling law of paying federal taxes on winnings of $600 or more will not change. While taxation of these bussiness is good practice for increasing government revenue, many expect that international operators used to not dealing with taxes besides the ones where they operate out of, will be hesitant to restart operations in the United States. This will only hurt the players who were locked out of accounts with money still in them, and create a semi monoply for Unied States allowed sites. A monoply of this type would mean fewer choices in tournaments. However those site who did choose to come back to the would then be forced to commision regulations.

tldr try looking for an english topic forum :/ do u really think ANY of the members here that are smart enough to give u valued opinions actually give a rats ass?

I was more or less posting here to make sure my poker facts were straight :D In case somebody did give a rats ass

Looks good. As long as you got your facts from wikipedia I don't see how you can go wrong. Don't forget to add the 2003 WSOP event in there when Christ Moneymaker, a nobody, took down the biggest poker field to date. That's why poker became so popular in the first place. People thought to themselves, that could be me.

Wow it surely sucks to be you and have to write all that shit!!! lol

alot of shit to read and write.. and best of luck loool

I think it Is a very good start on your paper and some people do give a rats ass

If you want legit proof reading, pm me and I'll give you my e-mail so I can edit it for you. I see a couple of grammatical mistakes. Plus I think in your intro you should try and find the latest year's statistics. Overall though, it looks like a very strong paper.

I wish online poker was around when I had to write my high school/ college papers, it would have made it a lot easier for sure. Looks good to me. Keep up the good work.