Online Gambling

Online gambling is evil, immoral, and selfish, right? Certainly not the kind of place you’d find caring, ethical, motivated altruists…

…like Calvin Ayers, BoDog founder, who has pledged £10,000 to Oxfam to aid Haitian quake relief efforts — and furthermore, will match all donations by online gamers to Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake Relief Help Fund“. In a situation like this, each of us has a duty to help.” Ayers writes on his blog. “Let’s do it!”

Hmm. May have to rethink that evil, immoral, and selfish description a little bit. But surely this is an exception to a rule?

Maybe, but here’s another big exception: the “Play for Haiti” Tournament tonight, hosted by Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Along with fellow sites Full Tilt and Pokerstars, these online poker companies have pledge to match all donations dollar-for-dollar to assist the Red Cross Haiti Disaster Relief Fund.

The Play for Haiti Tournament, beginning at 8:30pm EST tonight (Wednesday, 20 January), offers a $5 buy-in and guarantees $10,000 worth of Ultimate Bet Online Poker Championship entries.

In announcing the tournament, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet CEO Paul Leggett let his poker face slip a bit. “Along with the rest of the world, we’ve watched the headlines and news unfold with growing horror as the magnitude of the devastation in Haiti has been revealed,” wrote Leggett. “We believe we have a duty to do what we can to help raise funds and awareness for the plight of the people of Haiti, and our ‘Play for Haiti’ tournament is one small way we can work with our players to contribute.”

$21,000 is a nice win at the poker tables for almost anyone, but Dusty Schmidt isn’t just anyone; he’s using it to help the homeless and plant a seed for help and hope in the future.

Schmidt took his laptop and hit the freezing streets of Portland for a 30-hour online poker marathon that netted six months of rent and supplies for three homeless people. He set up signs reading “Play it Forward” and chatted with intrigued passers-by about what he was doing. “I felt the more difficult it was to go out and play on the streets, the more a statement it might make,” Schmidt said.

He took some inspiration from an unlikely pair: Kevin Spacey and John Lennon. The former’s film “Pay it Forward” lent the motto and the Samaritan strategy, while the latter provided a name for Schmidt’s daughter, Lennon, and impetus: “I decided to do it shortly after my daughter was born,” said Schmidt.

Online poker had already generated Schmidt some money — about $7,000 in his first month of play, at which time he made it his profession. His ultimate goal is that, as in the film “Pay it Forward”, the recipients will contribute as mentors or volunteers in the future, starting an ever-expanding chain of positive movement.

He’d not contributed to Transition Projects before, which made the substantial donation all the more surprising to executive director Doreen Binder. “It’s extremely moving to see somebody who’s come to an understanding or a realization that there are people in need,” said Binder. “He is donating money with the faith that this will change somebody’s life.”

MONTREAL – Quebec is the latest government to consider a ‘regulate and tax’ plan for online poker.

If Loto-Québec’s proposal is approved, Quebec could be playing government-approved poker online by next summer.

Alain Cousineau, Loto-Québec’s President and CEO announced the plan to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal on 17 November. He spoke of the “irreversible” international trend toward online gambling, pointing toward the gaming corporations of Norway, Finland, and Sweden.

Loto-Québec generated $1.4 billion in profit for the Quebec government over the most recent fiscal year, despite a decade marked by significantly less growth — a consequence, Cousineau, of market maturity and increased international competition.

Under the proposed plan, Loto-Québec would partner with British Columbia and the Atlantic Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador), all of whom already regulate and tax a certain amount of Internet gambling. Canadian online wagers totaled around $675 million last year, and are anticipated to pass the $1 billion mark sometime in the next two years.

Cousineau concluded: “It’s in the interests of Quebec society that the provincial gaming corporation process some of that money.”