Imagine

Sometime in the future….

“Hello sir, welcome to the Bellagio.  Can I help you?”

“Yes, I have reservations and I’d like to check in.”

“Last name please?”

“Blood, that’s Bee, El, Oh, Oh, Dee.”

“I see we have you down for 4 nights Mr. Blood.  How would you like to pay for your stay?”

“I’ll be using my Bellagio FPP’s.”  Hero hands cashier his Bellagio FPP card.  Cashier swipes it through card reader.  Beep, beep, boop, beep.

“Excellent sir.  Here’s your key.  Enjoy your stay and good luck at the tables.”

****

Our hero walks up to the poker room…

“Hello, do you have any open seating at $2/$5?”

“Yes sir, right this way.”

Hero sits down and the poker room manager asks, “Can I get you a rack?”

“Yes please.  But use my online balance.””No problem sir, please just enter your account name and password here,” as he hands me his wireless tablet.  Beep, beep, boop, beep.

“I’ll be right back with your chips.”

****

“Hi, I’d like to register for your daily tournament.””Excellent.  Our buy-in is $1000.”I hand the tournament director my card.  “I’d like to use one of my tokens please.  I won a $50+5 satellite back home a few weeks ago.”

“Not a problem.”  Beep, beep, boop, beep.  “You’re all registered sir.  We begin at noon.”

****

Some day, I believe that’s where this is all going.  How we get there?  I don’t know.  But right now, the big B&M casinos have the money and the incentive to become a powerful lobbying force in Washington.  Getting a “poker exemption” to the bill that just passed will hopefully be step number one.  How can anyone in say Harrah’s or MGM’s position turn away from the type of money that’s available?

Who wouldn’t love to pay for their room with FPP’s, or buy into a tourney with a token?  There’s just too much, and I shudder to use this word, synergy.

The online poker situation just got real cloudy.  But it’s not over.  While it may take a while, even years, to settle back into stability, if you can weather the storm, you’ll come out the other side a better player ready to reap the rewards of Poker Boom v2.0

****

Back in the hotel room after taking down the Bellagio $1000 event, our hero logs onto the FPP store.

Merchandise…no.  Clothing…no.  Ah, here we go.  “Other.”

Nice, that one looks like Jenna Jameson.  Click.  Beep, beep, boop, beep.