Dn On Protege + The Anti-gambling Legislation

[goose 0]

This is transcribed from an interview done a few weeks ago. The full interview will appear in the January issue of the WPT Magazine (it's a British publication, you might have trouble getting it in North America, but it'll be posted on the WPT site). This is a word for word transcription from this part of the interview, so it's a little choppy at parts, pure translations sound a lot better on audio then on paper, but I thought (and DN agreed) it might be a little more interesting to post it this way... you don't often get to see quotes in full context. Once the article runs I'll post some of the other parts that got cut as well. None of this can be commercially reproduced without permission.WPT: I guess we’ll start off by discussing the Protégé tournament, and what your reaction was to Fidler taking down the event at Lake Tahoe, and how successful the first Protégé was as a result of that:DN: Well when we came up with the event, we realized that four $10,000 buy-ins was an amazing prize. Even with great teaching, however, it’s still going to be difficult for a player to do well. Top pros play in ten, fifteen tournaments without doing anything, so any type of cash I would have been excited about with Fidler, but then he ends up chip leader heading into the final table, which just blew my mind. To be heads up, for the World Series of Poker Circuit Event with an opportunity to play in the Tournament of Champions at the end of the year was just mind-boggling. I felt for him too, when he came in second. You could tell he was ecstatic to be there, but totally disappointed when he came in second, even though he’d won himself a quarter million dollars. WPT: And how would you rate his play, especially in relation to things you’d worked on with him?DN: It’s amazing he did as well as he did, because we hadn’t finished. There will still certain parts of his game that had what I would call holes, but he had good instincts, and he had good discipline, and he had obviously improved. It showed when he got heads up, though, and he made a couple of mistakes about things we hadn’t had time to get into yet. You know the funny thing is he played in a couple of tournaments after that – and he played even better, but he wasn’t very lucky and didn’t as well. He was already a decent player coming in however.WPT: Which he definitely proved by winning the first Protégé…. Looking towards the second one, however, what are you looking to change from the first, and what made you decide to switch the venue to the Bahamas?DN: Well the Bahamas is a fun environment, you know the first one we had a great time, the whole group of the first ten Protégé finalists, and I thought about how it was an experience for all of us, so why not do this one in the Bahamas, it’s beautiful there. As far as changes, and some of the struggles we had in the first, we were doing a live webcam as well as filming a television show. This caused a lot more breaks, and other things which were not expected, so for the second one I expect things to run much smoother. Also the structure of the event will be changed, even though there was a lot of play, because I’m big on that - there’s going to be even more play in this one. WPT: And how much input did you have into the structure and design of both these tournaments? Is this most recent one going to represent your “ideal” structure?DN: Yup, I designed this structure in every way, shape and form - it’s all my baby. I feel you can apply a structure that is exactly the same for any event, but manipulate how long the rounds go for. (Impressively rhymes off an entire tournament blind level structure) – you can keep that structure and make it a 4 hour event or a 12 hour event by playing around with level times. I think it’s important to have that gradual increase in blinds, however, as opposed to other events that just go double double. ___________________________WPT: Perhaps you might first share your thoughts on where this all came from and how it came about? (Anti Gambling Legislation) DN: Well first off it’s simply absurd. A guy name Bill Frist, a Republican, had been trying to get an online gaming bill passed for quite some time, but was not successful. So what he did was pull just a very shady political play, in that he attached it to a bill that had to pass, the Port Security Bill, which is very important. He’s just one of these shady type guys, who comes in the middle of the night and pulls the wool over everyone’s eyes. Now the reason for him doing this is because he has problems with gambling, but it’s so hypocritical and wrong that he’s accepting money from Harrah’s to fund his campaign. I mean what does he think Harrah’s does? You know they don’t sell shoes. I believe wholeheartedly that it was just an attempt to appeal to the conservative religious right, but I think he missed the boat on poker. He needs to understand that poker isn’t something that’s looked down upon in the bible. Nowhere in the bible does it say you can’t play poker, and nowhere in the bible does it even say you can’t gamble. I think the reason for him doing it was “oh I’m going to touch upon the moral fibers of the voters and we’re going to win more votes”. But I think the opposite of that’s happened. I think a lot of the people who grew up Republican, poker players especially, will never vote Republican again. Moving forward, Bill Frist was definitely able to put a big dent into online poker. But he won’t kill it. All the law really says is that it’s illegal for U.S. banks to transact with online gaming sites. Frankly that wasn’t even happening anyway. Banks would send money over to Neteller, which would then move the money to the online sites. And that’s still pretty much status quo. Banks have 9 months to comply with the law, and in that time new forms of payment will come about and these online sites will flourish. A couple of years ago there was a law passed saying credit card companies couldn’t do this either, and everyone thought “oh this is the end of online poker”. Far from it. Neteller’s come up, Firepay, debit cards, and other things. Online poker’s too big, and it’s great to see that the rest of the world gets it. Italy just got onboard, and the United Kingdom trades these companies publicly, and it’s a great way to get more tax money and stuff like that. If the U.S. government were to regulate it, they’d be looking at 5-6 billion dollars a year. If I was a politician, I’d be using that as a selling point as why we should have it, you know “I’m going to lower your taxes”. WPT: Have you ever been interested in running for politics in any capacity?DN: I can’t. I’m honest. I tell the truth and stuff, that doesn’t usually work if you’re a politician (laughing). WPT: An organization like the Poker Player’s Alliance, which is now over 125,000 strong, I know you’ve been encouraging people in your blogs to join, but how powerful could an organization like this be? As a poker players organization, do you think it could get big enough to be a threat to congress or the senate?DN: Well I wouldn’t call it a threat, I would say that it needs to get much bigger, it needs to have about a million people. There’s more than enough poker players, the word needs to get out. Basically the only way we’re going to get things done in the poker world is to go the lobbyists and things like that, and get them signing off on some things. If we have a million strong, that’s too much to ignore. People running for office and people in office and so on can’t ignore that many people. Before talking about that, however, I think there was a mistake made by these online sites before all of this started. They should have been greasing the palms of the politicians before this happened. Bill Frist accepted money from Harrah’s, this guy who’s morally… whatever, and if some of the bigger sites like Party Poker had of just spent 5 or 10 million dollars, to fund some of these politicians, then we probably would have been okay right now. WPT: Do you see this situation reversing itself in the next decade or so?DN: Yes, I think it’s inevitable. Who knows, maybe this is already one of the steps that they’re going through, you know trying to cripple the online market so they can turn around and regulate it, that’s one of the theories out there. But it’s too strong, it’s too popular, you cannot regulate the internet. Really, it’s so offensive what the U.S. government is doing with this. Let me give you an example. If I went to Amsterdam and smoked a joint in Amsterdam, and had sex with a prostitute in Amsterdam, which both are perfectly legal, would I now be a criminal in the United States of America because it’s not legal there? The reason I say that is because when you go online, into cyberspace, you’re basically visiting other countries. When I go to a .uk site I’m essentially visiting another country. I should be under the laws of that country, not where the computer is actually located. For the government to try to say that what you do in the privacy of your own home, where you visit, if they’re going to start that war, well porn is a much bigger problem than online poker. WPT: Is there any part of his arguments that you’ve said “Okay well maybe he’s got a bit of a point there?”DN: I’ll tell you what the problem is. With any one of his points they’re so hypocritical because the government offers the crack-cocaine of gambling, the state lotteries – and online as well. When you say gambling is wrong you’re being such a hypocrite, I mean you’re being just such a ..... The truth of it is also that they don’t understand poker, they don’t understand that the player has a chance to make a living. If he has any point, it’s that clearly more people lose than win at online poker. But a lot of people take on endeavors that they’re not going to do well in. A lot of people open up restaurants, right? A lot of them aren’t going to be successful, but are we going to take away their right to try and open up these restaurants and say “you’re just not going to make it buddy, sorry, but it’s not going to work”? The majority of small restaurants, probably something like 95% are not successful. Should not the U.S. government step in and say “you know what Mamma and Pappa, we’re not going to let you do this because chances are you’re going to go bankrupt?” What’s the difference between that kind of gambling and putting your money on the poker table? The majority will fail, but a lot will still make a very good living out of it.

[delphi12 0]

WPT: Perhaps you might first share your thoughts on where this all came from and how it came about? (Anti Gambling Legislation) DN: Well first off it’s simply absurd. A guy name Bill Frist, a Republican, had been trying to get an online gaming bill passed for quite some time, but was not successful. So what he did was pull just a very shady political play, in that he attached it to a bill that had to pass, the Port Security Bill, which is very important. He’s just one of these shady type guys, who comes in the middle of the night and pulls the wool over everyone’s eyes. Now the reason for him doing this is because he has problems with gambling, but it’s so hypocritical and wrong that he’s accepting money from Harrah’s to fund his campaign. I mean what does he think Harrah’s does? You know they don’t sell shoes. I believe wholeheartedly that it was just an attempt to appeal to the conservative religious right, but I think he missed the boat on poker. He needs to understand that poker isn’t something that’s looked down upon in the bible. Nowhere in the bible does it say you can’t play poker, and nowhere in the bible does it even say you can’t gamble. I think the reason for him doing it was “oh I’m going to touch upon the moral fibers of the voters and we’re going to win more votes”. But I think the opposite of that’s happened. I think a lot of the people who grew up Republican, poker players especially, will never vote Republican again.

I'm so tired of hearing people mention Harrahs support of Frists campaign. Companies just give away money to random political people many of the times without knowing what they do or stand for. If DN or any poker player really has a problem with it, you should begin boycotting Harrahs. But you won't will you?

[tobytobey 0]

Good read. I'll be waiting for the full article to be available.

[Scott31 0]

I'm so tired of hearing people mention Harrahs support of Frists campaign. Companies just give away money to random political people many of the times without knowing what they do or stand for. If DN or any poker player really has a problem with it, you should begin boycotting Harrahs. But you won't will you?

Certainly Frist has the option of refusing the money, which is Daniel's whole point. It's similar to taking money from PHilip Morris and then trashing cigarettes on the House floor. It's really not that tough of a concept to grasp.

[goose 0]

Harra's itself isn't the problem, Bill Frist is here.Frist condemns gambling becasue it is immoral. Frist accepts large quantities of money from B&M casinos (gambling organizations) to maintain and reinforce the structural support for one type of gambling while attacking another equal form of gambling as immoral.

[delphi12 0]

Harra's itself isn't the problem, Bill Frist is here.Frist condemns gambling becasue it is immoral. Frist accepts large quantities of money from B&M casinos (gambling organizations) to maintain and reinforce the structural support for one type of gambling while attacking another equal form of gambling as immoral.

I disagree. Harrahs is the problem. Bill Frist never condones one type over another. He had an agenda and got funds to get that agenda done. Its what any smart politician would do. If you are upset, it should be at Harrahs though. According to reports, they were his largest funder. Who knows if he could gather the support he needed without those funds. Bill Frist was doing his job. Harrahs was stepping over their boundaries.