Today the Department of Justice levied a MASSIVE $3 billion fine against Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, the 3 biggest players in the online gaming industry. If you have any money in an account on one of those sites, it is probably already frozen. Whoops!

“As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions inillegal gambling profits,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from their profits.”

The DOJ is seeking $3 billion in penalties from the companies.

-Bluff Magazine

Many of us have enjoyed the poker craze that started in 2003 when Chris Moneymaker made the most fantastic run by an amateur that the game had ever seen. Particularly important to the drama of his WSOP main event win were 1. his name and 2. the fact that the former Moneycounter had won his seat through an online satellite, or qualifying, tournament. By turning his $40 investment into the then-record prize of $2.5 million before millions of eyes glued to ESPN, the accountant from Nashville pulled Texas Hold ‘em out of its smoky, underground speakeasies and dropped it squarely on Main Street.

What followed was a dramatic renaissance of the oldest form of gaming on the planet, retooled to take advantage of modern science. Online poker was a bona fide craze, and if you’re anything like me (read: in college at the time), not only were you playing for a few hours a day in your dorm, but you also took at least one day a week to join a live game. Over the next few years, some of those college kids got REALLY serious about their game and started making serious money, at which point playing live low-stakes home games with your buddies became a complete waste of time. Why spend a few hours playing a $50 game with friends when numerous websites offered whatever stakes your heart desired, the advantages of a shot clock to keep the game moving, and oh yea, the ability to sit at as many tables as your own brain could sustain. The most famous of the old-school poker kings, Doyle Brunson, likes to say that Hold ‘em “takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” But the ability to find multiple games at any time of day led to a new generation of players getting their lifetime worth of poker experience in a matter of months. The result was a boom in the number of serious, high-stakes players.

Take a look at the picture above. It is the job of both of these gentlemen to extract value from inefficiencies in a given system by making educated wagers on the likelihood of certain events while also considering the psychology of the other participants. Both of them do it with their own personal money. The intermediary institution in each case charges fees to connect interested parties and clear any monetary exchanges. Yet, while these two scenarios seem like perfect foils, one of these gentlemen is breaking the law.

How can this be? Why, because the law is ridiculous of course.

So instead of allowing online poker rooms to make their market by connecting consenting adults who seek to compete in a game of skill, while happily expanding the economy and collecting tax revenue from a multi-billion-with-a-b-dollar industry, we have hindered growth for the last 8 years because our ass-backwards Puritanical roots dictate that, “gambling is bad, mmkay.” The gub’ment decided that if they couldn’t in good conscience censor the Internet, they could forbid your bank from moving your money into an online casino. This, even while our economy grinds to a halt and the gub’ment spends itself into record debt before eventually threatening to shut down over budget squabbles.

But as everyone who’s ever had even a passing conversation about prohibition or the modern drug war in this country knows, whenever you make an extremely profitable business illegal, you create an army of loophole sniffing entrepreneurs looking to dominate the black market.

Storytime - After making a big score in a live game at a Seminole casino just before Super Bowl XLIII, I attempted to lay down some of my winnings on the Steelers -6, only to find that, suddenly, none of my credit cards would approve a deposit into my online sportsbook.  Lo and behold, a solution was offered. I could drive to a nearby Walgreens and purchase a prepaid debit “gift” card, and use that card’s credentials to deposit. It worked. That night, my bet was in, and the next morning, I flew to Pittsburgh to watch the game with some local maniacs. The Steelers didn’t beat the spread we rioted in victory nonetheless. The point, though, is that bookmakers were coming up with elaborate schemes to circumvent the regulations that stood between them and their customers.

Unfortunately, that you can only skirt the law so much before you actually start breaking it. Just as I had to use an intermediary instrument to smuggle my money in, the owners of online poker rooms, the DOJ alleges, resorted to larger-scale shadiness in order to get their profits out. I’m not saying these men are innocent, that they didn’t break the law. They may have. What I am saying is that the laws that forbid Internet poker from being an institution in this country are completely asinine, and obviously, the sites’ founders would not have had to go to such lengths to disguise their profits (ALLEGEDLY) if running an online casino was legal in the first place. Why bite off the industry’s hand, when you could eat from it instead by making it legal and taxing both the market makers and the players accordingly?

The government either doesn’t understand the game of poker, or is so strapped that $3 billion right now is worth the flow of additional tax revenue forever. The answer is probably both. But it’s also entirely possible that the suits are grabbing some cash now, with the intent of coming to their senses in the future. For now it’s up to the players at this point to let the government know how we feel. After all, everyone with money in one of these accounts right now is facing the very real possibility of getting COMPLETELY FUCKED when a Receiver is appointed to seize assets and liquidate them in the event that an online casino doesn’t have enough cash to pay the fine. The government and the lawyers will get paid first of course, but you can get whatever remains of your hard-earned money in a couple of years when it’s all sorted out. And don’t forget to thank Uncle Sam for saving you from gambling addiction on your way out!

Update: TweetForPoker.com let’s you tell Congress that you want online poker licensed and regulated.

Follow WG on Twitter @wannabe_genius and Mike’s ramblings on other topics @mickeyvee.