No matter what regulations are adopted, people will still play

LAS VEGAS – Across the desert they’ve swarmed again – in their twenties and in their twilight, card sharpies and card novices, doctors and patients, house painters and housewives, teachers and students, plus dropouts from all walks of still life – thousands upon thousands thrill-seeking millions of dollars at the World Series of Poker.

They love to gamble.

Alas, the government doesn’t want them to gamble.

Last year a record 8,773 persons entered the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Main Event. This year the Main Event, which begins Friday – come one, come all, but BRING CASH – might attract fewer entrants, largely because a new law shut down many online poker sites several months ago.

(Don’t get me started on government and gambling. State coffers are fattened by state-run lotteries. The feds turn the other cheek to Wall Street, arguably the largest gambling hall in the New World. And then some hysterical, head-up-their-butt Congressmen are shocked – shocked!!! – that gambling is going online.)

The legislation in question is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Essentially, it doesn’t allow banking institutions to accept transactions for gambling services, effectively blocking the money path that permits people to play poker online.

To which I say:

You can enact 52 laws from here to Deadwood preventing folks from playing poker online – they will still play poker online.

(Because I am a poker commentator for ESPN, some people might assume I have a built-in bias here. My friends, I could be a spackling-and-drywall commentator for Home & Gardening TV and I would tell you the same thing: You cannot stop the flow of multimillion-dollar commerce. Remember Manifest Destiny? Well, I’ll tell you what’s more obvious and more certain – people making money keep making money.)

From the dawn of time, morally righteous leaders have tried to eliminate or criminalize three basic areas of daily living:

1. Alcohol.

2. Gambling.

3. Prostitution.

And, yet, if we know nothing else about the human condition – or at least the human condition in those parts of America where I have paid taxes – it is that, regardless of laws or legislation, people are going to drink, gamble and, as Bob Eubanks would say, make whoopee.

The line for sinners stretches around the block, the line for saints generally disperses by noon.

(I am reminded of W.C. Fields, a heavy drinker much of his life who developed cirrhosis and kidney failure. Hospitalized, he was visited by a friend who was surprised to see Fields, an avowed atheist, reading the Bible. The comedian told him, “I’m checking for loopholes.”)

If we believe in our somewhat unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we should let people play. Let ‘em spend their free time as they please. Let ‘em chase indoor pots and inside straights.

Of course – and I don’t mean to be too humorless or hypocritical here – proceed at your own risk.

(I still believe online poker will be victimized by a massive cheating scandal – unsavory types always have tried to get an edge; with this much money at stake and this type of technology available, someone’s going to jimmy with the system. And I still believe the Internet, regrettably, is the safest haven for problem gamblers – addicts can hide their addictions too easily from the privacy of their offices and homes.)

Anyway, when it comes to Internet gaming, somebody in Washington soon will figure out that we should legalize it, regulate it and tax it. And, then, if you don’t want to play, don’t play. As for the rest of you, bet with your heads, not over it, and be careful playing pocket eights from early position.

Ask The Slouch

Q. Would the World Series of Poker be more entertaining if players were allowed to hurl metal folding chairs like in professional wrestling? (Tom Hoffner; Broadview Heights, Ohio)

A. You jest, my friend, but Phil Hellmuth has been doing this for years.

Q. How has David Beckham’s coming to America changed your life? (Mike Steger; Arlington, Va.)

A. Like Becks, I have tattooed the name of his wife Victoria on my left arm in Hindi, only I have spelled it correctly.

Q. How can Takeru Kobayashi eat hot dogs if he can barely open his mouth? (Lynn Pfeiffer; Carol Stream, Ill.)

A. Heck, I believe George W. Bush graduated Yale barely opening a book.

Q. So when you set the record for most marriages, do you think Bud Selig will attend the wedding or does he have to wait and see what develops? (J.R. Thews; Eau Claire, Wis.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.

Q. Sorry to be ignorant, but who’s Shirley? (Larry Gordon; Falls Church, Va.)

A. Uh, she happens to be the only woman other than my mother never to leave me (and my mother got halfway out the door once before my father threatened to put us all on “Jerry Springer”).