Is Facebook Poker breaking the Law?
Facebook has risen to the point where it is the world’s largest social networking site. And since they are such a large entity, Facebook has branched out into other areas to keep people on their site as long as possible. One of these areas in online gaming since Facebook offers its users lots of entertaining things to do such as Texas Hold’em games.
And these Texas Hold’em games are completely free meaning that there are no violations being committed or gray areas to deal with like what online poker rooms have to constantly worry about. At least that’s what I thought anyways….
A new problem has arisen for Facebook in the form of people building up a large amount of poker chips and then selling them to people for real money. Apparently this is just as illegal as the things the government claims people are in violation of when they play real online poker. In essence, Facebook and the payment processor AlertPay claim that this is illegal online gambling.
But to me, this is just more nitpicking and a way for Facebook to clear itself from any possible reverberations that could come with being associated with online gambling. The same thing has been done for years with the computer game World of Warcraft where people build up large amounts of gold and then sell it for real money to other players. I would hardly call this online gambling, and there are even companies that deal in this very trade.
Unfortunately, since the Facebook thing involves poker, this is an easy target to point at and claim illegal online gambling. Frankly I’m surpised that Facebook would be so quick to cop out of this situation, and I even hear they’re closing the accounts of those involved.