Absolute Poker Case Study

Although, Mezrich accurately noted how Absolute Poker’s clients could focus their blame on the U.S. government’s prohibition policy. The restrictive laws cut the offshore gambling industry off from any kind of legitimate banking options. The most popular and reputable e-commerce companies for the gambling industry, such as Neteller, were shut down by the U.S. government. Also, their American clientele knew that these companies were forced to do business with several shady non-sanctioned operators who had to disguise the nature of their transactions. Thus, after the Black Friday indictments were issued, the black market “money processors” had no incentive to return the players’ money. Regardless, many skeptics still believe that Absolute Poker’s executives have some secretive offshore bank accounts with millions of dollars. And that may also be the case, but we’ll never know all due to this prohibition policy.
In an interesting twist, there is a legal case which essentially parallels the point of view expressed by Mezrich and others. A group of investors filed a class-action lawsuit against one of the most recognizable investment companies, Vanguard, because two of their mutual funds had invested in offshore gambling companies. Their claims were dismissed by the judge who cited how it was the U.S. …show more content…
Ironically, that is a positive argument in favor of legalization as the industry isn’t the “crack cocaine of gambling” as many critics would have suggested. Dr. Sally Gainsbury, an Australian psychology researcher at Southern Cross University, has published research which refutes the conventional wisdom regarding Internet gambling. Thus, she concluded that “Internet gambling participation was not predictive of problem gambling severity,” in her paper, “Online Gambling Addiction: the Relationship Between Internet Gambling and Disordered