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Message: [QUOTE="OzExorcist, post: 1736499, member: 23910"] Protections would usually include things like prominently displaying links to gambler's help services, instituting voluntary deposit, time-based or stop-loss limits, making voluntary temp or perma-ban facilities easier to find / use and possibly regulating the kinds of advertising sites are allowed to do. On the other issues you're missing my point entirely. I'm not for a second saying we should be banning things that have the potential for negative addictive behaviour - for the most part I'm saying regulation is the correct approach to take. Obviously people make a choice to play online poker, nobody's holding a gun to their head. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when they lose. They were going to play anyway and if you didn't take their money someone else would have but that doesn't make the hurt any less real. Again, we can't dismiss issues like this because the opponents of online poker will eat us alive. Also it's not true to say that player can stop at any time. If they're an addict then by definition they have a problem stopping themselves from playing. FWIW you've got a very, [B]very[/B] naive view of addiction. While I agree that you shouldn't lose your freedoms just because they pose a danger to some other people you've got to remember that decision makers in government take the greater good into account when they're weighing the argument... which is why I've been saying all along that emotional appeals won't work. Weighing your right to have some fun playing a game and taking some poor schmuck's money vs the right of the child of a problem gambler to food and shelter. The homeless hungry kid will win every time, even if there's only one of him and a hundred happy poker players. One other thing to think about: poker, whether live or online, really can be insidious when it comes to problem gambling. We all talk about how it's a game of skill long-term and not to worry about short-term downswings if you're making the right decisions. As a result it's very easy for a losing player to delude themselves into thinking that they're a winning player that's just running bad - at least with table games or the lottery people know the odds are stacked against them to begin with. At a poker table a problem gambler may even be able to convince himself he's not gambling at all. What do you do when the opposition throws that argument at you? Hint: telling them that these people would just gamble somewhere else isn't going to get you your poker sites back. [/QUOTE]

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