Archive for February, 2009

U.S. public give online gambling the thumbs up

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
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internet_casino_banner.jpgA poll held by America’s highest selling newspaper USA Today has indicated that the vast majority of Americans support online gambling and believe the draconian constraints placed upon it by the Bush administration should now at last be lifted.The Poll was prompted following a story published on Congressman Jim McDermott’s proposed taxation bill on online gambling introduced last week. When asked the question “Is it time to legalise online gambling? 97 % of those who answered said yes.
Experts have stressed however that the winning votes should be recognised as ‘pro regulation’ rather than ‘pro-legalisation’ as there is already wide acceptance in the States that, regardless of the law, online casinos will do
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business in the country.The comprehensive result of the USA Today Poll inspired Golf legend Lee Trevino to speak out on what he preceives to be harsh laws on online gambling. He said ” We gamble billions of dollars in this country and the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t get a dime. Instead they spend millions of dollars trying to catch these people.” Last week Rep. Jim McDermott introduced a bill to Congress that will eventually help legalise and regulate online gambling. His plan has high hopes for the slumping US economy. The bill, if passed, could generate as much as $40 billion in additional tax revenue to the US Government over the next decade. “We have gambling on horses. All of a sudden we say you can’t gamble online. What’s that about? If we can take revenue from horse racing then we can certainly take revenue from online” says McDermott.

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Humans Remain the Poker Champs

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
In the much awaited poker match between man and machine, man proves that he is still the best.  At the start of this week, Ali Estami and Phil Laak (the Unabomber) took on the challenge of Polaris, touted as the poker computer program that would beat human poker players.  The “First Man-Machine Poker Championship” was held in a hotel in Vancouver, Canada and lasted for four rounds.  The result? Polaris folded after four rounds.The event was staged at the annual meeting of the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and a prize money of $50,000 was offered.  Of course, to these poker pros, this prize money is not that high.  It is, in fact, peanuts.  However, the stakes were much higher than the money itself.  Was a computer program supposed to beat the likes of the Unabomber? This concept is nothing new.  In fact, in games like chess, artificial intelligence has reigned supreme, beating the Master Kasparov.  Yet for now, poker seems to be man’s turf.  There is no doubt about it, poker is a bit more complicated than chess.  There are so many other factors that might have not have been incorporated in the creation of Polaris, such as poker tells. After the game, the creators of Polaris admitted defeat, but only temporarily.  According to Darse Billings, a member of the Polaris team and a former professional poker player, Estami and Laak played brilliantly.  Yet, he goes on to say that “I wouldn’t be surprised if we can beat them tomorrow.”  Just when “tomorrow” is going to be, we don’t know yet.

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