Dear China,

China, China, China. I know you’re not all bad. You have good food and your architecture is pretty cool, despite the fact that some of your walls are flimsy and highly flammable. You just can’t seem to get past this whole oppressive authoritarian government thing, though.

Stop living in the past. The results are in from the global experiment on totalitarianism during the early 20^th century. Turns out no one liked it. Nazism? Believed by most casual observers to be the most pure embodiment of evil mankind has ever witnessed. Stalinism? Actually killed more people than Hitler and was more oppressive to the people. It’s currently only viewed favorably by a few crazies around the world. Maoism? Well, you guys in China actually made the Nazis and Bolsheviks look downright kind. Sure, the Soviets starved millions of Ukrainians to death, but the Maoists dwarfed that death toll and it was your own people!

It’s time to move on. You say you’re just doing what’s best for China, but if you actually took an honest poll, you’d be surprised how many people would like to be able to protest without being run over by a tank. You’d be shocked how many people would like to have free access to information, especially a news media that isn’t controlled by you. If you asked about gambling, I can ensure you that you won’t have millions of Chinese saying “Please protect me from spending my money! I know you can be more responsible with my money than I can, so please take it from me. By all means, don’t let me gamble!”

I want to like you, China. President Nixon visited you a while back and said something along the lines of “Hey, you’re not as evil as you used to be; let’s do business.” And it’s true. You’re not as evil as you used to be. You have given up control of the economy to the free market. Now it’s time to embrace other types of freedom, such as freedom of expression, freedom of press, and the freedom to bet on a soccer game without getting sent to prison for a year.

That’s what happened yesterday, China. Don’t think I don’t know it.  You see, we have a (mostly) free press here, so I was able to find stories with headlines such as “China man gets 1 year in prison for online gambling.” I could find it because Google doesn’t censor search results as much here.

So here’s the story as I understand it. Please correct me if I’m wrong, China. A 20-year-old man, Zhao Yah, is a soccer fan. The World Cup was going on, which just so happens to be the biggest sports tournament in the world, despite the fact that your national team didn’t qualify. He decides that since there is such a high demand for sports betting in China, despite the fact that you think it’s a no-no, he will help people bet on the games through a website. You then have him arrested and sentenced to one year in prison plus a 10,000 yuan fine for the “crime” of helping people spend their own money on a fun game that is the most popular in the world. He didn’t even own or run the website, but was only a middle man who collected bets. Did I get that right?

China, I’m glad to see that you gave him a comparatively light sentence (thanks to his cooperation), but I think this can be a teachable moment. You see, if so many people were willing to give him money to bet on the games, maybe that means that your people want legalized online gambling. Maybe you should hear them out.

I hope you take these comments not as insults but as constructive criticism. The truth is, I want to like you, China. Sure, you poison American children with your dangerous toys and support a tyrannical North Korean regime, but I know there is good in you somewhere. You need to let it out. It’s okay. Germany managed to stop being evil a long time ago. Isn’t it time you did, too?

Sincerely,

Jeremy

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Late Tuesday night, multiple law enforcement agencies got together to take down an underground poker tournament in Texas. The poker tournament took place in a shopping center in Houston. According to authorities, one of the stores was being used as a front for the poker tournaments. At approximately 10:30 PM, undercover FBI agents and deputies from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office raided the store and made 14 arrests.

According to ABC’s Houston affiliate, those arrested were suspected of working at the poker room, rather than being players. They also stated that an undisclosed amount of cash was also confiscated. Gambling 911 reported that the store was running “$2,000 freerolls every night,” but considering the source, I can’t be sure that’s accurate.

A poker tournament like this would be illegal in the state of Texas, but perfectly legal in several nearby states. The police raid has led some to call for Texas to legalize the game, avoiding situations like this in the future. After all, it seems odd to have to visit a shady fake-store in a strip mall to play a game that is covered weekly on ESPN.

There isn’t a lot of information available regarding this poker tournament raid. One thing I am wondering, though, is why the FBI was involved. The FBI sent in undercover agents to confirm that poker tournaments are going on and then the FBI and Sheriff’s department together conducted a raid and made arrests. One whose statutes – federal or county – the arrests were made, I don’t know. I don’t know in whose custody the prisoners are being held. I do know, however, that there is no reason to think this poker tournament violated any federal law.

Though I can’t figure out why they’re there, I’m glad the federal government is using their limited resources to combat the epidemic of people having fun playing a card game. God knows we need to put a stop to that before it really gets out of control. I mean, sure, some people will say that federal law enforcement sources can be used for other things, such as guarding the nation’s borders, stopping the flow of drugs into the country, investigating fraud or protecting the country from terrorism, but everyone has different priorities.

More information on this case will be reported as it is learned.

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On Monday, when I reported on the fact that Canada’s first online casino had been shut down, like everyone else I reported the reason as too much traffic for the servers. Now it seems that may not be the truth.

On Friday, only hours after PlayNow.com was launched as Canada’s first online casino, the site went down. At the time, a spokesman for the British Columbia Lottery Corporation said that the site was down because of too much traffic to the site. Well, I should have known better than to take the word of a government employee.

On Tuesday, the Lottery Corporation admitted that a security breach was the reason for the website being shut down. It seems that on Friday, twelve gamblers playing on the online casino website had their private information accidentally shared with other users. The Lottery Corp. assures everyone that nothing as sensitive as credit card information was shared, but members did get access to the user names, session time, money spent during the session and account balance.

This happened because of a type of loading glitch called a “data crossover.” When members logged into the online casino, they inexplicably found themselves accessing someone else’s account. Everyone affected by the security glitch has been notified by authorities and are taking the proper precautions to protect themselves. However, the casino website won’t be re-launched until the Lottery Corp. is certain that the glitch has been corrected and that no such security breach will occur again. In the meantime, Canadians who want to play casino games are out of luck.

So why did we first hear that overloaded servers caused a crash of the website, rather than it purposely being shut down because of a software problem that poses a security risk? Well, it certainly sounds better, doesn’t it? Would you rather say “our business is so successful that we couldn’t handle the demand” or “we accidentally shared sensitive account information with other players?”

Some critics have said that the Lottery Corp. rushed the website before it was ready to launch. Though the BCLC insists that’s not the case, the severe security glitch begs to differ. Sometimes it’s best to let the pros, who have been running online casinos for a while, run the casino business. Governments tend to ruin everything they touch, as may be the case here. Legalizing online gambling in the province is a good move, but having the government run an online casino may be too much for them to handle. Admittedly, I don’t know a whole lot about Canada’s governments, but I know governments in general, and they tend to be horrible at running businesses.

The online casino at PlayNow.com was the first online casino established in North America, at least for a couple hours. Other provinces in Canada, such as Quebec, are considering following British Columbia’s lead and opening their own casino for additional tax and permit revenue.

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If the word China is in one of my headlines, you can assume it’s not good news. It’s rare that anything good comes out of that country, though you could argue that their economy is currently more free than in the United States. Still, the U.S. doesn’t have the record of killing people for political dissent, purposely starving millions and controlling every aspect of a person’s life, at least not yet.

It’s no secret that China frowns upon online gambling, probably because it allows people to have control over their own money and spend it in ways they see fit. No, wait, that can’t be the reason. I’m sure they’re doing it for the people’s own good, protecting them from themselves. Authoritarian governments around the world have done unspeakable things in the name of protecting its citizens and doing what is good for them, whether they realize it or not.

Today’s news out of Red China is that two men have been arrested for search engine optimization (SEO). The Chinese government says that the two men worked for Baidu, a Chinese search engine company that basically provides a Chinese alternative to Google, Wikipedia and other sources of information. According to police, those men were paid by 777 Real Casino to work on their website, optimizing their content to make them rank better on the search engine.

According to the Chinese government, doing SEO work for the company amounts to illegally promoting an online casino, an offense that, like everything else in China, carries a prison sentence. In response to the arrests, Baidu stuck up for their employees and stood with them against the evil government.

Just kidding. They cowered like frightened dogs and distanced themselves from the employees, saying they had no knowledge of their activities (which may be true). They also apologized and said that Baidu “has always obeyed our country’s laws and regulations and we strongly oppose the behavior of those who use the Internet to engage in criminal activity.”

As someone who writes blogs about online casinos using SEO, I’m glad I don’t live in China. Of course, I’m also glad I don’t live there because I enjoy eating regularly and having some freedom.

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As I reported last week, the Canadian province of British Columbia became the first jurisdiction in North America to legalize and regulate online gambling when they launched a casino on Thursday. British Columbia’s Lottery Corporation launched an online casino on their PlayNow.com website.

Now I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the new online casino has been wildly popular. The bad news is that the website is currently down. That means that online gamblers who want to play now, can’t do it at PlayNow.com.

Within a couple hours of launching the new government-run online casino, the server crashed due to being overloaded by visitors. The Lottery Corporation didn’t have an infrastructure that could handle the massive increase in traffic volume at the site. Due to that, the website is currently down and Canadian citizens eager to play their favorite online casino games can no longer do so, unless they go back to the foreign operators.

While it’s bad news that the website is down and the Lottery Corp. couldn’t handle the traffic, it’s good news that the site was so popular. Online gambling is often seen as a small issue, and in the grand scheme of things maybe it is. However, the crashing of the B.C. server shows just how popular that activity is, which is a good reason to push for further legalization throughout the rest of North America.

There is no timetable yet for a re-launch of the website. Whenever it does get back up and running, though, the Lottery Corporation can expect a large number of deposits and wagers from British Columbia residents.