The Wire Act, initially passed in 1961, continues to be the backbone of current legislation that is currently being attempted to get pushed through on both local and federal levels. Representatives against the legislation continue to point at the age of the legislation and the fact that other forms of gaming have been legalized, yet they continue this assault on online poker.

Their argument this is nothing more than a half hearted attempt to grab headlines and sensationalize everything is easy to understand when you look at some of the sites that they have somehow managed to leave off of the list of banned sites. The bulk of them do not even allow US players to wager on them. Why would these poker sites be included and sites like PokerStars and UltimateBet/Absolute be allowed to continue their operations within the state?

As Barney Frank continues to get his legislation prepared for presentation, it will be very interesting to see how things play out. As reported earlier, the internet providers have 3 weeks (less now) to address the situation and if Barney’s legislation receives positive support, it will be very curious to see how Minnesota and the other states that have banned online gaming react. My guess is that this is far from over and over the next few months this will be dominating the poker headlines as much as the WSOP.

As the news hit the wire, poker forums were burning up with concerns about what players were going to do about getting their bankrolls out and how they were going to get their poker fix in. With 200 sites being banned from transmitting information to computers, there is a definite cause for concern not only in Minnesota, but in other states across the United States as well.

The odd part about this little venture is that while a lot of the major poker sites and gambling sites are listed, there are some noticeable players that have been left off of the list. Most noticeably, Poker Stars and UltimateBet/Absolute were for some reason missed the list while Full Tilt and BoDog led the list of banned sites.

Interestingly enough, The Minnesota Department of Safety is not only trying to block the IP addresses, but also the phone communication links as well. This is something that has to have players in absolute panic. With the MDS only giving internet providers 3 weeks to respond to their request, players are not being given very much time to respond to the latest Big Brother move by a local government agency.

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting. With the Federal Government having legislation on deck and this legislation about to take effect in Minnesota, the poker world as we know it is about to be turned on its head. Hold onto you chips guys, it is going to be a wild ride!

The partnership between bwin and the Division on Addictions was established in 2005 to provide a scientific basis for the assessment of conspicuous gaming behavior and its consequences for responsible gaming. Two key findings beginning to emerge from the research initiative are:

1) The myth of online gaming as a powerful seductive force has been empirically refuted. Online gaming has no greater problem potential than offline gaming.

2) Responsible gaming measures show effect.

The current research, which analyzes the behavior of  Poker players over the course of two years, is the world’s largest longitudinal and the first ever epidemiological study of its kind.

Individuals exhibit rational behavior

“In this research we provide additional evidence in support of our previous research showing that most subscribers who gamble on the Internet do so moderately. In fact, correlation analyses indicated that as Percent Lost increased, Duration, Total Gambling Sessions, and Total Amount Wagered all decreased, suggesting that individuals moderated their behavior based on their wins and their losses – exhibiting “rational” betting behavior.” says Howard Shaffer, PH.D., Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School, Director, Division on Addictions, The Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

• The average age of the cohort (sample) was 27.9 years and almost 95% were male. The typical Poker player was an active poker player for a median duration of six and a half months and participated in a median of one poker session every three days. The median Euros per session gambled was €13 and the median cost of playing poker was €1.80 per session.

• The gaming behaviors of the most involved poker players show that this group, representing 5% of all players, was active for a duration of 18.5 months and participated in ten sessions per week.

• This 5% subgroup had a smaller percentage lost than the sample majority, suggesting that skill is a factor in poker play and that players are able to improve their performance compared with chance.

• When examining the most involved poker players who devoted more time and money to this activity, the study found that like the rest of the sample, they reduced Euros per session and reduced Total Wagered as Percent Loss increased.

“In our intention to replace speculation with scientific evidence, this study takes us a big step closer towards understanding the behavior of online poker players. Ultimately we are interested in developing algorithms capable of identifying behavioral patterns or identifying risk patterns associated with disordered gaming.” says Manfred Bodner, Co-CEO of bwin.