Greg Raymer on California Legalized Online Poker: “Not Good Enough”

World Series of Poker winner Greg Raymer appearing on Fox Business News last week believes legalizing online poker in the debt-laden state of California in an effort to help the state raise funds is a “good idea” but “it’s not good enough”.

“This probably would do a lot for California,” he agreed.  “It would improve their budget situation and it would be good in the sense that we want to have online poker specifically legalized.”

The problem?

“We don’t want it just for California,” Raymer said.   “What poker players want is to play against one another from wherever we are in the world.”

But California and New Jersey, another state that could legalize online poker within the next three months, would represent a step forward.  In contrast, Washington State has taken a step back in recent years, implementing a law that makes playing online poker a Class C felony.  With fears that customers themselves were now at risk, most Internet poker establishments stopped allowing customers from that state.

During the Fox Business broadcast, it was brought up that no society in history has ever gambled its way into prosperity.

For Raymer, his argument is less about a struggling economy and more about grown adults being permitted to make their own decisions, good or bad, without the Government telling them how they should conduct their lives.

“For California, whether it is going to solve their problems or not, for me is irrelevant,” Raymer added.

Still, the one-time World Series of Poker winner was happy to see that California was taking the “appropriate Libertarian approach to this issue.

- Patrick Flanagan, Gambling911.com