April 2011: D.C. officials said that they are planning to set up 20-30 online gambling "hot spots" in hotels, bars, clubs and other venues across the city by around September 1. The idea with these gambling "hot spots" was that poker players from all over the U.S. could play online poker legally against each other.
On August 22, in an interview with The Washington Post, Phil Hellmuth, winner of 11 World Series of Poker bracelets and Hall of Fame inductee, spoke his mind about D.C.'s legal online initiative.Hellmuth said there are hundred of thousands of American gamblers looking for a safe reliable online option after the shuttering of PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker. However, he said that there are too few people in D.C. for it to work.
"I still think that people are looking for a place to play poker and it wouldn't be surprising if you had a lot more players than you think start playing. It's a nice test, sure, but I think there's so few people [in D.C.], 600,000, that you might not achieve critical mass for players on the site under those conditions. Some pros might be tempted by a fresh population of weak players, but the low stakes mean it wouldn't be worth the professional's time."
Phil Hellmuth continues..
"Allowing the private poker market to thrive is the foolproof way for governments to make money off gamblers: The states have to ask themselves, how are they going to make money? Are they going to invest millions in software, hire a bunch of people and end up in a situation where they don't recoup their money for three or four years? Or do they just start taxing it right away, and make decamillions from the start?"
Seriously, if they charge too much they will kill it, not enough and it is not worth it. Things are going bad enough financially for the Americans, what better way to tap into some worldwide money?
