Indeed, why should Americans not be able to play poker online when they can bet on the ponies online?
Online poker players urge to make online poker legalized in US
"You can bet on horses - I never heard of anything so silly - but you can't bet on poker." Alfonse D'Amato was interviewed by ESPN during this month's World Series of Poker where he defended the game as a great American tradition.
D'Amato currently serves as Chairperson for the 617,428 members strong Poker Players Alliance.
The former New York Senator fully supports Barney Frank's efforts to make online poker legalized.
While World Series of Poker organizers seemed content that they had attracted 6358 players to this year's event, Gambling911.com painted an entirely different picture.
Gambling911.com Publisher Christopher Costigan pointed out that for the last three years, the percentage growth of poker has increased dramatically from 33% in 2004, to 46% in 2005, to a whopping 64% in 2006.
Assuming the percentage growth stayed the same, we would be looking at very conservative numbers for the 2007 World Series of Poker. 64% growth over last year would have amounted to 14387 entries this year. Staggering numbers to say the least.
Actually, this is the most fast-paced growth in online gambling.
StraightFlush.com - a relatively new Internet poker room on the scene - would have paid a decent amount just on WSOP marketing alone.
"StraightFlush.com would have spent anywhere between $300,000 and $500,000 on various forms of marketing, sponsoring of players and making a huge splash had it been possible (to participate in this year's WSOP)," commented Dan Ramiro of StraightFlush.com.
StraightFlush operates on the Cake Poker platform. Nearly all the major Cake properties now have key sponsorship deals with Gambling911.com, including StraightFlush.com, BetUS.com, Sportsbook.com and Cake Poker itself.
Last year, the Sportsbook.com brand spent just over $1 million at the World Series of Poker. BetUS.com has not disclosed its spending on last year's event, but speculation is they too spent a few hundred thousand on marketing efforts despite focusing more heavily on their sportsbook than their online poker room. Cake has been splurging in recent months as well.
"Knowing both StraightFlush.com and Sportsbook.com's spending, when you throw Cake and BetUS.com into the equation it is easy to realize a good $3 million in revenue lost just from these properties alone," comments Gambling911.com Senior Editor, Payton O'Brien.
As one might imagine, the former Senator was greeted by poker players at this year's World Series of Poker with resounding cheers.
"Why should Americans not be able to play poker online when they can bet on the ponies online?" D'Amato asked the riled up crowd before he kicked off Day 1D play by yelling "Shuffle up and deal'em."
