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We all have heard about the US gambling restrictions. I have to say that to me, this all story looks strange. There are casinos in the US in almost every state (I want to say in all states but I am not totally sure), and I think that people are gambling in there, though maybe I am wrong.
Lately, there are new voices calling to return things to the way they were:
"U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank is introducing legislation to repeal the controversial Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA)."
Read more
"WTO Calls US Online Gambling Ban 'Illegal' "
Read more
Hopefully, something will work...
Backgammon gambling
The game of backgammon (as Poker, Tennis or boxing) is played normally for a stake. In fact, I don't know if the term "backgammon gambling" is suitable at all. I don't think that anyone will say that Andre Agassi is a "Tennis gambling" addict though it is undeniable that luck can affect the results of a certain game (good wind, bad sight or almost anything) and Andre makes some money because of that.
A few researches indicated that the luck factor is not the most important thing in playing backgammon. The fact is that in the long run, the statistics has shown that the better player will win more games. Nevertheless, almost all the big Backgammon servers closed the doors to the American Backgammon community (or closed it partly).
Free backgammon (?)
Of course there is always an option to play backgammon for free. Most of the servers give this option but there are a few problems with that:
- Almost all servers will stop developing their software and with time they will disappear. There are only a few backgammon servers that exist without
backgammon gambling, most of them are not backgammon dedicated servers but a part of bigger portals (and in most cases, it is shown).
- The professional "backgammon gambling" players will not stay online for long and there will be only lower ranked players left.
- Maybe not everyone will agree but the game is much more interesting when playing for money; for example, when a player needs to choose if to take the doubling cube or not, when playing on stakes he will think about it, calculate his chances carefully and decide. When playing on "fun backgammon money" the risk is not big. More accurate; there is no risk, so, in the worst case, you will just need a "money refill".
There are many other problems but I think that the biggest one is that the American authorities, which seem very liberal in some cases (as offline "backgammon gambling" which is still legal or even Tennis) are behaving in this particular subject more like, well, not so liberal...
Summary
The online backgammon community will not survive for long in a world without backgammon gambling. There may be a few organized groups with local sites, maybe small servers but the world of online backgammon as big and interesting as we know it today will disappear.
Almost every sport in the world became more popular and successful with the entrance of money: football, golf, car racing and others. Let's hope that the efforts of the gambling community around the world and in the US will change the situation back to the way it should be.
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