|
One of the fastest growing activities in America is playing poker, often for money online. Now a new law targets Internet casinos and the cash they pay out, as CBS news correspondent Jim Acosta tells us: the winners are not happy.
Internet poker player Spencer Smith spends two hours a day at the casino on his couch for a good reason.
I've done well. It got me through college.
It got you through college?
Yeah.
But for Smith and the other ten million online gamblers, all bets may be off. Legislation that could pull the plug on thousands of Internet casinos sites is now attached to the new port security bill that's expected to be signed into law today. (Play poker, online…) The measure could topple a 12-billon-dollar-a-year juggernaut that gives amateurs a taste of the action on those wildly popular TV poker tournaments. Conservative groups say the sites prey on gambling addicts, operating offshore under the radar of law enforcement.
...necessary because of the damage that we've seen, iee, gambling and especially anonymous gambling on the Internet.
The new law won't make it a crime to play poker online. Instead, it will block banks from processing gambling winnings, which is why droves of players are now cashing in their virtual chips.
I pulled out of a party poker and stopped playing immediately.
While Jeff Markley, with the gambling trade magazine Bluff, has closed one of his online poker accounts, he says players are plotting ways to move their winnings through third-party websites.
They are never going to be able to stop the means of funding gambling accounts.
Industry observers fear many Internet gamblers will simply turn to black market on-line casinos.
The bad thing about the law is that it really drives out the operators who would be mo, the most reputable.
For this new law to work, the government would have to ante up the money to police online gambling. Until that happens, laptop aces like Spencer Smith are nowhere near ready to fold.
Jim Acosta. CBS, news Atlanta.
Some poker players also complain/ the new law protects other forms of gambling like horse racing and lotteries.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
topple:to stop being steady and fall, or make someone or something do this 倾倒
juggernaut:something that is very powerful, especially something that has a bad effect 有极大影响的人物或事物
ante up:informal to pay an amount of money 付钱
|