By Adanthar on March 11th, 2008 (more posts by author)

I wasn't going to post about this until after the taping and/or when we had an air time, but since the story apparently already broke, Nat's blog pretty much covers it: we're likely (assuming they don't kill the story now!) going to be on 60 Minutes in a few weeks.

Some of you might think this is bad for online poker. I disagree. In the short term, yes, this could be a little ugly (although if the scandal itself and having people chat about it on every single table didn't drive down those AP numbers, this story, released to an audience that largely has no interest in playing poker in the first place, certainly isn't going to.) In the long run, however, stories like this, packaged properly and with an undertone of "regulation would be great for the industry", have the potential to keep the game vibrant. I, personally, do not want games full of half-baked innuendo about rigged RNG's, site owners with backdoors in the software, and the overall shadiness that comes from a marketplace that, by necessity, operates in a gray legal area; I want them full of people that, whether they win or lose, do not doubt that the operator is standing behind the integrity of the deck of cards, something that, except in one case :P, I can't physically prove at this point. Does the tennis match fixing scandal reflect badly on the integrity of Betfair? No - because it's a fully licensed European site with a reputation to uphold, stories like the one I linked have largely exculpated it from any blame and, in fact, shielded it. Compare this to the stories that have been printed about online poker and you will understand why I think we need regulation ASAP.

Do I guarantee the 60 Minutes piece will be fair? No, but I'll do my best to make it that way, and for what it's worth, everyone that I've talked to clearly understands the game. That's as much as I can ask for, and given where we are in Congress and where we will be following this election year, the need for good stories outweighs the risk of bad ones.