Internet gamblers can now say "all in" and wager $10,000 a week at the B.C. Lottery Corp.'s website after the cash-strapped Gordon Campbell government approved a massive increase in online betting limits.And when those gamblers do plunk down their money at the "Play Now" site — Visa and Interac accepted — they'll find a smiling, friendly face ready and willing to take their loot.
His name is PJ, a "former junior hockey star from Chilliwack" who now works as B.C. Lotteries' animated online poker dealer. The cartoon card-shuffler is one of several animated characters — each with their own name and personal bio — in the "Pacific Hold'Em Poker" game that's been a hit in bars and pubs.
Now the poker game has been introduced to cyberspace — just in time for the 8,300-per-cent increase in online betting limits, from $120 a week — along with other "real-time" gambling games such as bingo, keno and virtual scratch-and-win tickets.
Gaming Minister Rich Coleman, once a fierce opponent of online gambling, said he approved the huge spike in betting limits to try to keep online gamblers closer to home in the cutthroat global market of Internet gambling.
"They [B.C. Lotteries] are competing against sites that are offshore and that are not well regulated," Coleman said yesterday.
"I felt that if there were more people in British Columbia that were making the choice to go offshore into unregulated markets that it would be better for them if they were actually in a regulated market."
Coleman had a very different opinion on the matter back when he was solicitor-general and an anti-gambling crusader.
"Illegal gaming and Internet gaming — those are things we fight to stamp out," he said in 2003. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh, Rich?
But don't expect to beat the government's new online poker game. Not even famous Canadian pro Daniel Negreanu, with four World Series of Poker bracelets on his wrist, could beat this B.C. Lotteries money-sucker.
That's because it's not real poker. The cards are not dealt at random, and no amount of poker skill will help you win.
"It's a lottery game with a poker theme," explained B.C. Lotteries spokeswoman Susan Dolinski. "The outcome is predetermined at the outset of each game."
Which is why I laughed out loud when Coleman said yesterday that online gamblers would be better off at the government's Internet site than at one of those sleazy offshore sites such as Party Poker.
B.C. Lotteries will "make sure that they're getting the right odds and the right opportunity with regards to e-gaming," Coleman said.
Not when the outcome of a poker hand is "predetermined," minister. The government's new online poker game is strictly for suckers. Which is obviously why they raised the betting limits, right?
Wrong, insists B.C. Lotteries. "This helps players make responsible choices, so they can set their own limit and play within it," Dolinski said.
The New Democrats are calling the government's bluff. "It's a desperate cash grab," fumed NDP critic Shane Simpson.
No doubt — and a potentially huge one at that. After all, $10,000 a week is $520,000 a year.
So bet it all and let it ride, British Columbia! You'll go broke — but the government will love ya.
E-mail: msmyth@theprovince.com
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