Gambling is illegal in only two states: Utah and Hawaii. Actually, private poker games are allowed in Hawaii, but all forms of gambling, no matter what, are illegal in Utah.

If you are a serious poker player, this is very discouraging. To become a really good poker player, you need to play a lot. You need to practice all the time. If you live in other states, you can find a poker game close by and play for a few hours if you have time to spare. You can play during your lunch hour, after work, before work, before bed, whenever you have some spare time, etc.

If you live in Utah you have to spend a ton of time traveling out of the state before you can find a poker game.

You may say that you can always play poker online. Well, playing poker online is illegal in Utah. If you play anyway, you probably won't get caught, but online poker is not the same as live poker. There are certain skills that you just can't develop if all you play is online poker.

You may say, "you can always go to Wendover." The problem of going to Wendover is that it is a long drive, and it is hard to go all the way there if you only have a few hours to spare. You can only go there if you have a ton of time available, and most people who work 9 to 5 during the week don't have that kind of time after after work, at least if they want to get much sleep. Realistically, they can only go on the weekends, and then only if they have nothing else going on.

Also, Wendover may not have the kind of poker you want to play. At one point, they did not have 2-4 limit Texas hold'em (or multiples thereof). They may or may not have it now. Wendover has somewhat of a monopoly over people in Salt Lake and Utah Valley. If they had competition from casinos in Utah, things would be better for the poker players.

If you go to Las Vegas and play poker, many of your opponents will be very good players, since they play poker all the time at home. You are at a huge disadvantage when you play against them.

Suppose you are retired. Like a lot of retirees, you might want to play poker a lot. You just can't do this in Utah. You may not be able to afford to pay for hotel rooms in casinos to play poker.

If you are handicapped and can't travel, you can't play poker.

If you are an ambitious person and want to get good enough at poker that you can beat the game long term and maybe become a professional poker player, you will have a very hard time doing this in Utah. You will have to spend a huge amount of time in other state(s), sacrificing work in the process. You will have to pay a huge amount of money for hotel rooms and other travel expenses. And this doesn't count the money you might lose playing poker itself while you are learning how to beat the game long term.

There is a lot of skill involved in other casino games. If you want to play these games well, it is a lot easier if you don't have to travel huge distances every time you want to play.

I am a serious gambler. I got really into gambling years ago. I have read a lot of gambling books. I have played a lot. I live in Utah and have done a lot of gambling outside the state, paying for a lot of hotel rooms and bus rides in the process. It is very sad that I can't gamble at home.

The Mormon church is responsible for this statewide gambling ban. Without the Church's influence, there would be gambling in Utah.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2021 10:34PM by behindcurtain.

not.gonna.happen:

ChurchCo knows that gambling would syphon $$$$$ away from ChurchCo revenue.

Case Closed.

Plus if you make money gambling, the church is supposed to decline attempts to pay tithing on ghawd’s having filled your inside straight with the river card...

I asked my father if, when he was a Bishop, did he refuse tithing from gamblers, pimps, embezzlers, etc. He told me that he never asked where the money came from.

Back in the day when I lived in Reno, NV (side note - the church in Reno was actually tolerable, borderline enjoyable...having home teachers was optional, meetings cancelled on Super Bowl Sunday, etc.), I offered the Lord to pay increased tithing based on any gambling winnings I would be blessed with. Of course it would be a sliding scale starting at paying 15% on a $100,000 win. I saw it as a win/win. Apparently The Big E. didn't.

I occasionally buy a lotto (Mega-Mill, Power Ball, state lotto) ticket, I also once won a few $$$ at a casino here.

I can readily see that many people are obsessed with the feedback / reinforcement that the games provide (for lonely people)

I fear that there's no guardrails in some people's lives, gambling, criminal activities, sex, drugs/alcohol, porn, etc.

such isn't the life I want to enjoy or lose control over or even 'go down that road'.

IDK what % of people have those types of out-of-control habits, nor do I care to tempt fate; Losing is a bitch.

I lived in Nevada during high school and summers when not going to college. Most of the locals never gamble because they all know it's a losing proposition. Over my lifetime I've listened to so many stories about winning money. Nobody likes to tell you the they've lost more than they've won. With that said, I lived in a border town of Utah. Weekends were solid Utah license plates at the casinos and houses of ill repute.

Maryland has a lottery, and we also have a few casinos at widely spaced locations. I don't mind them, since they are not everywhere. They do function as both attractions and economic drivers.

The thing I don't like is that when the lottery, casinos, etc. have been introduced to the voters, the promoters have always said that the money the state gets would be going to education. Instead, the money gets thrown into the general pot. I really hate how funding for education was used as a carrot to get the votes. I also feel that we let the casino ownership keep too much of the money. The voters should have asked more of them.

At the time, a number of surrounding states had casinos. So a big part of the thinking is that our state was giving that money away. Perhaps it's not as big an issue in Utah.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> At the time, a number of surrounding states had
> casinos. So a big part of the thinking is that our
> state was giving that money away. Perhaps it's not
> as big an issue in Utah.

What the drive time from SLC to the nearest casino in NV?

same Question for Colorado.

In Washington State, the casinos started rolling in on Native American (First Nations, Indigenous People) reservations, a few of them are managed by the big Nevada corps.; Native Americans get hiring preferences.

My neighbor, a manager of one, says that the gamblers get about 75% of the revenue, it's a numbers deal.

As for dealing with the Utah powers that be:
YOU CANNOT DEALL RATIONALLY WITH AN ITRRATIONAL PERSON

me too

I wish marijuana was legal in Idaho (not that I would use it), but when you have Mormons running your state government intent on forcing you to live their religion, it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

It may be illegal but I bet you don't find any arrests or prosecutions for the betting pools on the NCAA basketball tournament or Super Bowl.

Even have the pools going in the Church Office Building each year.

This is sort of like a serious skier complaining about living in Kansas.

You're right. Or a serious surfer living in Montana. It's very frustrating having to travel so far to do what other people can do in their own backyards.

I think you missed my point.

What if I gamble everything I have that the church is true and that the CK exists. Is that legal?

Good question. The law would never come after you for betting this way, so in that sense it is legal.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2021 10:19PM by behindcurtain.

Gambling is legal (and encouraged) in Utah. You bet 10% of everything that you make or own on a promise that you get to be a god with your own planet in some afterlife.

stillanon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gambling is legal (and encouraged) in Utah. You
> bet 10% of everything that you make or own on a
> promise that you get to be a god with your own
> planet in some afterlife.

Those are some long odds.

(In fact, didn't the bookies [net worth $100bn+] already announce that everyone who paid into the kitty is screwed?)

My big experience with gambling: Once when driving through Nevada I doubled my money gambling. I stopped at a cafe that had slots and I put in a nickel. On that first nickel I won two nickels, and so I quit, having doubled my money

I'm not a great fan of gambling because I've seen what it can do. I know people who literally bet rhe house and lost.

If people want to do it then there is no shortage of places to go like Nevada. But I think Utah is right on this one.

Statistically speaking, problem gamblers are a small minority. This Nanny State mentality that is applied to just about any kind of adult fun to the detriment to individual liberty. The folks who need help, need help, and should get it. Just leave the rest of us alone.

(And, no, I'm not a big fan of gambling. The odds are bad to insanely bad, so haven't bothered with it much other than on rare occasion. Still, I'm so sick of the "some people do bad stuff with X, so we need to ban X from everyone." Puh-lease.)

You are gambling a tenth of your gross income that mormonism is true.

When I was at BYU, there were no pool tables in the student union building. Actually, union was probably a banned word. The student center.

Face cards for games to kill time while waiting in line for the Varsity Theater to open would get you serious side eye. They might get you asked to leave. I never tried them. Rook cards were fine and could be checked out at the rental counter. Rook had 4 suits and 14 ranks, so any card game played with a regular decks could be played with a rook deck if you could remember that 11 was the jack, etc.

Of course no Coke or Pepsi products. In 1965 and 66, rock dances were banned from campus. That stopped when most students went to the Blue Terrace off campus, and the BYU Stasi realized they had better control if they kept the students on campus.




Friend, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community
Well, Ya got trouble, my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in River City
Why sure I'm a billiard player
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye
Jever' take and try to find
An iron-clad leave for yourself
From a three-rail billiard shot?

But just as I say
It takes judgment, brains, and maturity to score
In a balkline game
I say that any boob can take
And shove a ball in a pocket
And I call that sloth
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-Day--
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon
Then beer from a bottle
An' the next thing ya know
Your son is playin' for money
In a pinch-back suit
And list'nin to some big out-a-town jasper
Hearin' him tell about horse-race gamblin'
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey'boy

Settin' on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say
Now, Friends, lemme tell you what I mean
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table
Pockets that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum
With a capital "B"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

And all week long your River City
Youth'll be fritterin' away
I say your young men'll be fritterin'!
Fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
Get the ball in the pocket
Never mind gettin' dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded
Never mind pumpin' any water
'Til your parents are caught with the cistern empty
On a Saturday night and that's trouble
Yes you got lots and lots of trouble
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers
Shirt-tail young ones, peekin' in the pool
Hall window after school, ya got trouble, folks!
Right here in River City
Trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

Now, I know all you folks are the right kind of parents
I'm gonna be perfectly frank
Would ya like to know what kinda conversation goes
On while they're loafin' around that Hall?
They be tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out cubebs
Tryin' out Tailor Mades like cigarette fiends!
And braggin' all about
How they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen
One fine night, they leave the pool hall
Headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry!
Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son, your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instinct!
Mass-staria!

Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
Trouble, oh we got trouble
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool
That stands for pool
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City
Right here!

Gotta figure out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like 'swell?"
And 'so's your old man?"

Well, if so my friends
Ya got trouble
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!

Oh, we've got trouble
We're in terrible, terrible trouble
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a "T"! Gotta rhyme it with "P"!
And that stands for Pool

I hope you got Ernie's autograph. That would be worth something!

No but I once saw him knock out a bunch of pushups at a "welcome to BYU" student forum. He thought he was such a stud-muffin.

And I once got to stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

Gambling over COVID is legal in Utah.

The way it works is you don't get vaccinated, then you get infected. That produces two scenarios:

99% chance of survival

1% chance of death

Many Utahns think those odds are too good to pass up.

When I was 5 we were going between CA and UT and The Parental Unit just HAD to stop and see Circus Circus as it had just opened. There was a kids arcade on the top and I was happy to be parked there out of the heat. I still remember looking down and seeing all the opulent (to my child eyes) it all was and figuring out my mother and all those other adults were paying for it. I have only known one person that made money at it. I have lived close to one for over 20 years and just have no interest. I might go one day if there is a band I want to make the effort for.

Yeah, I know the odds. I work too hard for my money to throw it away, and I don't find throwing it away to be in the least bit enjoyable.

My mom used to like to go on trips with her retired friends to play just a small amount on the slot machines -- maybe $30 at the time. She would often get ahead, only to lose the money through continued gambling. I asked her why she didn't stop when she was ahead, and she said that there was nothing else to do, and she would just be bored. (If it were me, I would take a walk, or read a book or something.) If you view the $30 as entertainment money, then I suppose you could justify it. I just never found losing money to be entertaining.