Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
Quote Originally Posted by FR1GHT View Post
Licensing is an LOL movement. You have to be licensed now in the US to CUT HAIR. The licensing processes forces a lot of people into hair cutting schools that cost them $20k+ to end up at great clips making minimum wage plus tips. It's a complete joke. God forbid somebody gets a bad hair cut, which still happens today at the "licensed" Great Clips. What happened to standing on your reputation?

Personally, I believe licensing has benefits, but only in the short run. In the long run, the licensing process allows the government to flex their muscles. Keep entities they like in and ones against them out. It allows them to have more control, by tightening licensing rules and restrictions. Basically, in the long run, licensing gives the incompetent government control.

In the short run, yes customers will get burnt, but Pokerstars built a great reputation without US licensing. Hell due to government licensing restrictions, they might not even be allowed to operate here if and when it ever does get legalized in the US. Government licensing is great for the short sited, but the free market is better for the long term. There's no rule that says that if the government legalized online gambling and THEY didn't license it that they couldn't go after the corrupt sites. It doesn't have to be a licensed industry to prosecute shady operators. It just needs to be legal. Last I checked it was never OK to steal licensed or not.
Pokerstars was one good example among many bad. You can't look only at the good ones and say, "No licensing process is necessary!"

I agree that licenses are also somewhat of a cash grab for local/state governments, and that licenses for things like cutting hair are kinda foolish.

But there's a real need for a licensing process and strong vetting of potential gambling site operators.

This isn't just a theoretical discussion anymore. That was the discussion we had 10 years ago. Now we have several real-life examples of disasterous results from the self-regulating model.

And again, even if you want to argue that licensing of online poker is a bad thing, you can't reward the ones who chose to break the law while others were following it.

Let's say you wanted to open a strip club in your neighborhood, but the city council wouldn't give you the license to do it.

Then, say, 6 months later, I opened one anyway, and the city council looked the other way and let it happen. Say I made tons of money from doing this, while you sat on the sidelines and helplessly watched, still afraid to open your own.

Would this be me "asserting my freedom", or would it be an unfair advantage against people like you who followed the law?
My short term assertion still sticks. The online poker market was just starting to mature when PS got shut down. At that point, very few people were playing on shady sites. Being licensed would have been great in the short run for players at UB, etc..., but long term I don't think it's worth handing the keys over to the government. Next thing we all know to be true is corruption will start taking place, hell it already is proven to have happened with shady processors. That is bullshit and everybody knows it. You can't stick to the laws when your own politicians aren't. Oh, I forgot, you believe in government control, where they expect you to follow it, while they don't.

You're ready to hand over the keys to the corrupt for what you foresee to be a few safe years. Next thing you know, it's regulated and you can't even turn a profit because in 15 years they are raking 20% of the pot. What makes you think online gambling would be any different than the state lottery in the long run under government control?