I was driving home from work on Friday when I got the text:

cnn.com
pokerstars execs indicted
domains seized by fbi


I didn’t believe it at first. But I checked the news and sure enough, the day that online poker players had always feared was finally upon us. The government had shut down the three biggest online poker sites, effectively ending online poker in the U.S.

While online poker is perfectly legal in most countries, it has been a gray area in the U.S. since 2006, when the SAFE Port Act was passed. It was mainly about port security, but an online gambling measure was added at the last minute. It essentially said, “Well, we don’t know if online poker is legal, but if it’s not, then it’s illegal for banks to process transactions for poker sites.”

Some poker sites stopped accepting U.S. customers altogether. Others were willing to let them play, but the problem was how to get money into their accounts. Since most payment processors didn’t want to get involved in this legal gray area, the poker sites had to find people who would. And they figured that as long as they were forced to do something a little bit illegal, they might as well do something a lot illegal.

That amounted to bank fraud and money laundering. The funny thing is that that’s really all this is about. No federal court has ever ruled that online poker is illegal.

I can’t really defend money laundering, but the government could just fine the individuals responsible instead of shutting down the whole industry. Really, the same government that couldn’t be bothered to prosecute the perpetrators of the financial meltdown has decided that they’re not going to let people play cards?

Looking at the tables on PokerStars, I see players from Russia, Chile, Argentina, Taiwan, Canada, China, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Israel, United Kingdom, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Mexico, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Serbia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Estonia, Denmark, South Korea, Norway, Honduras, Paraguay…basically the whole world, except the United States.

Why don’t we have the same rights as people in these countries? What happened to the land of the free? Regardless of whether you happen to like poker, this is not a good precedent. Millions of people have lost a beloved hobby, and some people have lost their dream job.

What’s the point of trampling on this harmless pastime? The government couldn’t stop alcohol, and they can’t stop poker either. They’re just going to push it underground, missing the opportunity to regulate and tax it.

I’m going to go to work tomorrow (if software development is still legal), punch my time card and make a living without poker. Yes, I’ll survive, but the roses will smell a little less sweet, knowing I’ve lost this shot at the American Dream.

Is business school worth the six figure price tag? About 15 years ago, my college econ teacher said that an MBA would pay for itself, but only if it was from a top 20 school. Today, I suspect the ROI is even less.

Josh Kaufman wrote The Personal MBA as an arguably better (and certainly far less expensive) way to learn the principles of business. He used to work at Proctor & Gamble, launching new products and developing marketing measurement strategies. Now he works as an independent business educator, providing an alternative to B-schools that, according to him, ”teach many worthless, outdated, even outright damaging concepts and practices.”

Is this book really an effective substitute for business school? I don’t know. You’d have to ask someone who went to business school, and see how it worked out for them.

I’m sure we could all debate the merits of business school until the cows come home. But anyway, for someone who has any interest in business school, it would be pretty dumb not to read this book. (Business schools will still be around when you’re done reading it.)

I did find the book slightly entertaining, but it’s not really something that you’d read for pleasure. It’s no-fluff, heavy-duty business knowledge, and lot of it, on a broad range of critical topics. Anyone interested in business would consider it a must-read.

Is there any situation where Josh would consider an MBA a good idea? Yes – if someone wants to work for a prestigious consulting firm, an investment bank, or a Fortune 50 company that uses MBAs as an interview filter. In that case, a $150,000 piece of paper is the cost of entry. Otherwise, you might as well avoid the debt.

(Now, to sit back and wait for flames from business school students…)