The opinions in this editorial do not reflect the positions of the ownership or management of Poker News Daily.
This past Sunday, the five day boycott of the Venetian poker room – proposed by noted poker author Nolan Dalla to protest the stance by the chariman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation’s Sheldon Adelson regarding online gaming – ended with little fanfare. With the boycott now in our rearview mirrors, was it successful in the objectives that were laid out?
A recent article on CNN.com written by Michael Martinez (about a much more serious boycott proposition of Florida and its products as a result of the Trayvon Martin decision) pointed out the three things that a boycott needs to be called a success. One, it should cause some economic hardship; two, it has to keep the spotlight on a particular issue, and third, it has to achieve a stated objective. If we are to apply Martinez’ criteria to the Venetian boycott, it would have to be a mixed decision but leaning heavily to “no.”
On the first part of the criteria, putting a dent in a casino’s bottom line through not playing at their poker room is roughly akin to using a band-aid on the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” to heal him. It is well known that poker rooms aren’t a huge money maker for a casino and, besides that, Adelson himself has admitted that a majority of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation’s revenues come from their endeavors overseas. Dalla himself even admitted that the economic impact on the Sands’ bottom line would be minimal if a large scale boycott occurred in several of his blog posts on the subject.
On the second part of the criteria, keeping the spotlight on an issue, the efforts by Dalla and others who stood alongside him was a rousing success. According to Dalla, 47 websites ran some type of story on the proposed boycott, coverage of the plan in the Las Vegas print media was extensive and Vegas television news also picked up on the story. By drawing attention to Adelson’s inane beliefs, Dalla’s boycott has pushed the issue to the front of many people’s minds and perhaps caused some consternation for the future with the Sands’ properties.
The third part of the equation, achieving a stated objective, is difficult to ascertain. While the boycott was never meant to change Adelson’s mind on the subject of online poker (as if that were going to happen), it did bring about in-depth discussion on various segments of the poker world, in particular the fast-moving world of online poker regulation. As a result, the grade on the third segment of the criteria would have to be rated as “incomplete.”
The coverage last week of the “boycott” – which featured photos in the media of a packed Venetian continuing on full bore with their action – was a bit disheartening. Rightfully so, many players argued that, to make a living, they needed to be in the action and the Venetian was the room of their choice to pursue that endeavor. While Dalla didn’t begrudge these players that right, he was at the minimum hoping that they might consider moving to other poker rooms in Las Vegas, at least for a week, to show support for online poker and against Adelson’s stance.
This points out one of the most difficult things that the poker world has to deal with – the “lone wolf” mentality. Long before the term “lone wolf” was bastardized to mean some sort of terrorist acting on his own, it was created to indicate someone who pursued their own objectives even if it affected his (or her) own life. That has long been an issue in the poker community on a number of issues that have arisen over the past ten years.
Poker players may complain about rake at a poker room’s cash games or the juice that they pay for a tournament, but few are ready to step up and not play in those games at the risk of losing out on the money involved. Some organizations have attempted to mobilize players in an attempt to provide them with things that they don’t have, such as group medical insurance coverage, but players are wary of organizations promising much but delivering little. Even in the online world, where certain scandals have blasted the image of a clean game out of the water (and perhaps caused newcomers to the game to not get in the action), players may sound off on not playing at Site X but always drift back when the games are “so soft.”
It is only through a significant bulk of the base that anything in the poker world will be changed and the “lone wolf” mentality has been and will continue to be a significant obstacle to any substantive movements and/or change. While Dalla’s Quixotic quest with the Venetian poker room boycott may have fallen flat on some fronts, it does show that poker players would have some real power – if they could only get a bit more organized.
