10 More Essential Hold'em Moves: Defending the Blinds

There’s no simple fix for becoming a winning poker player but there are a handful of simple, easy-to-execute poker moves that can make a world of difference to your bottom line.
By fine-tuning these tactics you’ll have more tools to put to work at the poker table. You’ll be able to better understand your opponents and how to manipulate them, and that will translate directly to money in your pocket.
We already wrote the book on the 10 Essential Texas Hold’em Moves and now we’re back to bring you 10 more.
Today we’re going to teach you how to defend your blinds. You’re forced to put money into the pot twice per orbit and we're going to show you how to minimize your losses and win more pots when you’re playing from the small and big blind.
The What: Defending your blinds refers to calling a preflop raise from either the small or big blind.
The Why: Because you’re forced to put money into the pot when you’re in the small and big blind it’s important to play optimally and recoup your share. Above all else you should not lose more than you would by simply folding.

Blinds put a lot of dead money in the pot. Make sure you get your share.

The When: Understanding key concepts like pot-odds, and factors like your opponent’s raising frequency marked cards and post-flop aggression, will allow you to defend or surrender your blinds at the right times.
The Where: Defending the blinds applies to both cash games and tournaments.

Defending the Blinds the Right Way

First of all it’s important to understand that the small and big blinds are the two worst positions at the poker table.
If you’re in the small blind you’ll be forced to act first on every post-flop round of betting. If you’re in the big blind it’s not much better. In fact, even the best poker players in the world lose money from these two positions.
One of the most common beginner poker leaks is calling too much from the small and big blinds. You must divorce yourself from the idea that your blind represents an investment in the hand, automatically making you pot-committed to any raise.
While it’s true that having a blind in play will give you better pot-odds, it does not mean you can call every raise with whatever two cards you happen to pick up.
In order to defend your blinds effectively you must understand the situation and the opponent(s) you’re up against.

Players, Position and Defending the Blinds

Position is the most important concept in understanding when it’s appropriate to defend your blinds.
Players’ pre-flop raising ranges get wider the closer they are to the button, which means you have to know where that raise came from before deciding whether to call, raise or fold.

Just because Gus defends with 3-5 off-suit doesn't mean you should too.

The earlier the position your opponent is raising from, the tighter your defending range has to be infraredink.

Conversely, if action folds all the way around to the button and he puts in a raise, it’s safe to put him on a wide range of hands and defend with weaker cards.
The type of player making the raise is also very important when deciding if you should defend.
A very tight player won’t be raising trash, even from the button, while a maniac will be opening weak hands even in early position.
Observe your opponents to understand what kinds of hands they’re raising from what positions and adjust your defending range accordingly.

How to Defend the Blinds for Beginners

One of the biggest problems with beginners who defend the blinds too much is that they’re put in tough spots later in the hand, causing them to lose more than just the preflop call.
For this reason we suggest a very tight range for playing out of the blinds, and a “fit or fold” approach to post-flop play, especially with your weaker hands.
As a general guideline we suggest defending your small blind with 77+, TJs+, AK, AQ and raising with QQ+.
If you’re in the big blind you can expand your calling range to include smaller pocket pairs and lower suited connectors.
The important thing for beginners to remember when calling with the weaker hands in that range is that you will need to flop more than one pair to play a big pot.
By using a “fit or fold” approach to post-flop play with marginal hands you’ll avoid putting more money into the pot with a losing hand.

Defending the Blinds in Action

If you’re still unconvinced about how important successful blind defense is to your bottom line, let Daniel Negreanu school you up in video form.
Negreanu takes our lesson one step further and goes into the math behind defending your blinds.
It’s worth a few minutes of your time. He has made more $16 million playing live poker tournaments.

How to Qualify for the EPT: Climbing the Seven Steps

This is the last article in a seven-part series from EPT Serial Qualifier Pierre Neuville to improve your chances of qualifying for the EPT.
Check below for links to previous articles in the series.
From just learning the ropes in Step A to winning it all in Step G, the PokerStars Steps tournaments are a long, exciting route to the EPT.
You start with the virtual beginners, grasping around for the right moves, and by the time you finish in Step G you're going head-to-head with some of the best players in the world.
To do well in the Steps tournaments you must have a somewhat successful track record in SNGs.
You also need to have a good understanding of the changing rhythms needed: of prudence in the first levels to an aggressive finish.

Climbing the Steps

The goal in these tournaments, obviously, is to climb your way up the ladder to the top step.
Gradually, as you get closer, you need to be sure to pay marked cards attention to the "programming" needed for the following step.
When you’ve acquired your ticket for Step F, observe in volume and take a lot of notes on the play of specialists.
But above all, don’t rush! To give yourself the best chance to qualify, only choose the best moments.

Poker Stars and the seven steps.

Don’t Lose Your Ticket

When you’re trying to climb the Steps ladder, the first objective is primarily to not lose your ticket to the level you're at.
Finishing in third or fourth place will usually reimburse your ticket for that level and not drop you down to your previous step.
If you don’t win the first time but finish third or fourth, you can play several more times and give more chances to, well, chance.
Your objective must then first be to not lose ground, which will then automatically multiply your chances of winning.
The First Stages to the Final Four
In short, at any Step level: Avoid any flips in the first stages, see flops quietly and only make small bluffs to steal the pot.
You don’t want to put yourself in any danger in this part of the tournament as you need to make the final four places 9 times out of 10.
When you get to the final four players, that's when the real qualifying starts and controlled risk-taking is essential.
At four players, you have to go looking for chips so you won’t be the short stack against the other players, who will likely band together.
This is where you must not miss your chances.
You can’t learn everything in a few lines, but if you have the chance to get to three players and there are only two winners… Well, here is where I want to help you ensure your qualification.
So: Hands off the mouse. No reflexive or quick moves. Use your time bank every time.

A Quick Spin Through the Math

You’re at three players and there are two qualifiers. In other words, you have two chances in three to win (66%).
The objective here is only to further increase your chances, so don’t make any moves that increase your risk of a quicker elimination marked cards contactlenses.
How? A flip with QQ against AK? Of course not!
This decreases your chances from essentially 66% to 53% (your slight edge in the flip).
Have a nice-looking AK in your hand and thinking about trapping your opponent who you will put all in with his JT?
Not good either, as your chances still decrease again – you’re only a 60% favorite there rather than 66%.
With your AK, you can still trap even better. See yourself beating his A2 with your AK?
Still no!
Your odds are indeed the exact same at two out of three, but here you’re actually initiatiing your chance to lose right now.
What About Aces?
Ok, so what about THE bomb? Happily, you look down and see AA.

At the end of the steps, ElkY awaits.

Better, but don’t forget that it’s still not a guaranteed win.
That said, yes, in that exact case you increase you chances substantially from 66% to 80% so your chances of winning are greater.
But now, well, you’ve become aware of the hazards of poker. You can still lose 20% of the time with aces.

Your Best Move is to Not Play

At three players left, your #1 goal is to get into the best position possible … where you DO NOT PLAY!
This exact spot is when the other two players have an all in and a call between them.
If they have equal stacks, this is the only moment in poker where you’ve increased your chances of winning to infinity.
So wait all you can, watch the aggressiveness of your opponents and concentrate on the real goal.
This is your obssession: to stay in the tournament until the other two are all-in against each other.
By focusing on this reality, you let the others run into each other and you multiply your chances of success.
Good luck!

Tournament vs. Cash Play Part 1

This is part one of two articles exploring the differences between playing tournaments and cash games, at more than just chip face value.
Investment and Return
One of the biggest differences between tournaments and cash games is your investment versus your return.
Bad beats aside, every player is guaranteed a significant amount of playing time in a well-structured tournament. The large ratio of starting chips to blinds allows every player to start as a deep stack.
The only monetary investment made in a tournament is the original buy-in. Bad beats aside, you are guaranteed to see a large number of hands for the price of entry.
In a cash game, with each chip being worth face value, the same investment can't guarantee you nearly as many hands.
The attraction of having a set maximum loss makes tournaments attractive to weaker marked cards players, who are not comfortable with the amount of money they may lose playing a cash game, or casual players who don't want to invest a large sum of money into a bankroll. This is one of the reasons a tournament will have an average lower quality of players overall than most cash games.
For a $100 buy-in to a large tournament, the winner stands to make upward of $8,000, depending on the size of the field and the payout structure.
Any player can have a spectacular day where everything works out for them. On one of these days, a player stands to win 80 times the original investment.
In a cash game, you'd be lucky if the same type of day made you 20 times your original investment. The allure of making big money is attractive to gamblers. More importantly, it's attractive to players who know their skill level is lower than that of many other players in the room.

Negreanu is one of the few players who is world class in both tournament and cash play.

Bankroll Differences
As a professional player, you must always be playing inside your bankroll. Playing tournaments requires a much larger bankroll than playing cash games.
In the short term, cash games are much more likely to yield a positive result for a professional than a tournament. But the amount of money made will always be far less than the winner's share of a tournament with an equal buy-in amount.
A top-notch tournament marked cards contactlenses player can expect to win somewhere in the neighborhood of one out of every 40 tournaments he enters. (The larger the fields in the tournaments, the worse this ratio will become.)
Ignoring all cashes that aren't wins, the player may stand to lose 39 buy-ins before they win. They will make good money in the long run but will have to suck up significant losses on the way.
Cash game play will have its own swings, and periods of loss, but they should never be on a scale as large as this. If you are losing 39 consecutive buy-ins at a cash game then you are clearly making some huge mistakes at the table.
Quality of Players
I don't want to be misread, and have people think I'm saying tournament players are less skilled than cash game players. What I am saying is that with an initial buy-in of a similar amount, you will find a larger ratio of weak players to strong ones in tournaments than in cash games.
Although there will be more weak players in tournaments, you will also sit with more great players then you would at a cash game. With the availability of satellites regular Joes can afford to get seats into major tournament events.
Everyone in a tourney buys in for the same amount and is seated randomly. Such an arrangement will see weaker players seated next to, and playing against, some of the world's best. The same Joe who won a satellite would never have been able to afford to sit at the pro's regular high-limit cash game.
In cash games, you're generally seated with a group of players who all have similar levels of skill and experience. Players who exceed the norm for that limit, and dominate it, move up to a higher limit.
Part two of this article will explore the final few elements that differ between the two types of games.

Playing No-Limit Hold'em with Deep Stacks

Deep-stacked, No-Limit poker is one of the most complex and challenging varieties of the game.
It's not something every player will face, but if you do, it pays to be forewarned.
The main reason it's so complex is with deep stacks you're forced to play all three streets.
All-in confrontations are limited.
Each decision is a subtle chess move, and with any mistake you risk losing not just a piece of your stack - you risk losing the whole thing.
In other words: deep-stacked poker is what separates the gender-neutral term for adults from the gender-neutral term for children.
All About Huge River Decisions
Deep stacks are defined as 200 BBs or more, and the biggest change in game-play is you actually have to play easy cards tricks the turn and river.
If you're playing with 50-100 BB stacks, by the time you have a bet and a raise on the flop, if you're committed it's always going in either on the flop or the turn.
The river usually ends up being just a card you have to dodge with all the betting already finished.
In deep-stack poker, you have to make huge river decisions.
The pot is big and you still have money left to bet.
The only thing worse than facing a huge all-in turn bet is facing that same-sized turn bet with more money left to bet on the river.
This is why pros love deep-stacked poker - because they can maximize their edge.

Deep-stacked poker is a thinking man's game.

 

Position Even More Important With Deep Stacks
It should be pretty apparent that position is the most important factor in poker.
If that isn't obvious to you, stop reading this article and go read this one.
Position becomes even more ridiculously important when the stacks are deep.
If your decisions were hard out of position before, just wait until the pot is 150 BBs on the turn, you both have 300 BBs left in your stack and you are out of position.
That decision is going to be very difficult. And that's just it: playing in position makes everything easier for you.
You get to have the final say whether you want to raise, check, bet or call.
When you're out of position, you're left guessing. And when you're left guessing with deep stacks, you're going to end up making mistakes.
When you make mistakes, you lose money. It's as simple as that.
Deep Stacks Change Hand Values
Deep stacks change the value of hands drastically.
With a 20 BB stack, a hand like A-J can be very strong.

Deep stacks change hand value.

 

When you hit a flop, your opponent will likely call off your small stack with a potentially worse hand.
And when you're behind, you only lose that same small amount.
When the stacks are deep, your opponent is not going to want to put in a lot of money with a one-pair hand that you can beat.
So when you win, you win small. When you lose, though, you lose big.
Try playing three streets on ace-high boards with A-J. The times you win, it will be a small pot.
Those times you lose, you're going to lose a boatload.
Top Pair Hands Go Down in Value
That being the case, top pair hands go down in value. But that doesn't mean you should stop playing them.
They're still valuable - you just need to play smart, exercise pot control and of course maximize your time playing in position!
If top pair hands go down in value, which hands go up?
Big-pot hands do - hands like suited connectors and pocket pairs. Hands that make sets, straights, flushes or full houses all drastically rise in value.
With deeper stacks there's just more money to be won with big-pot hands.
In deep-stack situations, implied odds are through the roof because betting on the turn and river is almost guaranteed.
So in reality, a hand like 8♥ 9♥ is more valuable to you on the button than A♣ T♠ would be from early position.

The key is putting it all together.

 

Putting It Together
The "secret" is to put those two concepts together.
You want to play your big pots in position with big-pot hands.
You want to control the size of the pot when you have one-pair type hands, and you want to build big pots with big hands in position.
Let's look at a few examples.
Example 1
$1/$2 NL Full Ring. Effective stacks $600.
THe under-the-gun player limps as do two players from middle position. You raise to $10 with 7♣ 8♣ on the button.
All three players call. There is $43 in the pot.
The flop comes A♣ T♦ 6♣. The UTG player bets out $20 and the other two limpers fold.
You raise to $65 and your opponent calls. There is $173 in the pot and the turn brings the 9♦. UTG checks, you bet $135, he calls.
There is $443 in the pot now and the river comes 2♠.
UTG checks, you go all-in for your last $410. Your opponent tanks and then calls.
He shows A♦ 9♠ and your straight rakes in a huge $1,200 pot.
Why Deep Stacks and Suited Connectors Go Hand in Hand
This hand is a great example of why deep stacks and suited connectors go hand in hand.
When you hit, you have the potential to win huge pots. When the stacks are deep, hand value normalizes.
It becomes less about the cards marked cards and more about how you play them - skill is put back into the game.
When the stacks are deep you also have room to get creative with a wider range of hands because there is such a huge upside.
Weak Ace Out of Position is Doomed From the Get-Go

Weak aces out of position are doomed.

 

As for your opponent's play? Well, he was doomed from the get-go.
Playing a weak ace from out of position with deep stacks is always a recipe for disaster.
Also, he got married to his hand and you put him to tough decisions the entire way down.
Out of position, it's difficult to know where you stand and deep stacks worsen the situation.
If the stacks were a shallower, say 100 BB or less, chances are the money would have been in on the turn.
Because the stacks were deeper he was forced to call that would-be all-in bet on the turn and yet another larger river bet to see if his hand is good.
Now let's look at a top-pair style hand.
Example 2
$1/$2 NL Full Ring. Effective stacks $600.
UTG limps. You make it $8 with A♣ Q♠. He flat-calls and you take a flop heads-up. $19 in the pot.
Board comes A♦ 7♥ 8♣. He checks and you bet $13. He flat-calls.
$45 in the pot now. The turn comes 2♠. He checks, you check behind.
The river comes 6♦. He bets out $35, you flat-call.
He shows 7♦ 7♠ and his set rakes in the $115 pot.
By being in position you control everything.
You eliminated the turn as a round of betting and only allowed him to get one real street of value in. You have the last say in everything.
He, on the other hand, is in a tough spot. Out of position, he chose to slow-play the flop and once you check the turn the pot is small.
He can't very well bet $200 into a $45 pot so he is forced to bet a reasonable amount.
An amount that, thanks to your expert pot control, is easily callable.

Don't be predictable.

 

I know what you're thinking: If I play all my top pair hands super weak and all my big hands strong, won't I be easily read by my opponents?
They'll just fold when I bet big and call when I bet small.
True, if you always play that predictably.
Of course you should always mix up your play - so occasionally you will have to bet three streets for value with TPTK or run up a three-barrel bluff.
This is just a rough guide on how to play deep stacks.
It is not a cover-all, push chart. For deep-stacked poker, no such chart exists. Deep-stacked poker is an art that needs to be played by feel.
The only thing that can truly help you master deep-stack strategy is experience and the willingness to learn.
If you put in the time to review your hands played and constantly try to come up with the optimum way to play hands, you'll be unstoppable.
Just remember:
The more you put your opponent to tough decisions and the more you avoid tough decisions yourself, the more time you're going to spend stacking chips and the less time you'll spend second-guessing yourself.

Partial Reinforcement Part 2

Last week we examined the "partial reinforcement effect" (or PRE).
Editor's note: Make sure to check out part one of this blog to catch up if you haven't already done so.
The PRE is the finding that behavior that is rewarded on an irregular, unpredictable schedule becomes more likely than behavior that has been rewarded every time.

This may seem paradoxical, but the effect is very real, in poker and in the rest of life.
Try this: Imagine a game where you win a fixed amount every time you play particular hands - say you get $1 each time you hold big slick. OK?
Now imagine a game where you averaged a $1 win with A-K but on a wildly varying schedule. Sometimes you won a huge pot, sometimes you got felted and sometimes you just stole the blinds marked cards. This latter situation is far more desirable.
That's the PRE and I want to use it to take a look at a familiar character: the chaser, aka the calling station.
I'll start with three hands from a recent game. I had just gotten knocked out of a tournament and was not a happy puppy. When I am unhappy, I drop down in stakes, for I am not always playing my A-game.
I took a seat in a $1/$2 game along with the usual suspects. After a while a new player sat in the 10 seat. It quickly became clear that he was a gambler who had come to mix it up. Implied odds? "Don't need no freakin' odds!" Position? "Whassat?" Player styles? "Who gives a flyin' F!"
I was as card-dead here as in the tournament, so I just sat while calluses formed on my butt and tossed away J-6, T-2, 7-4 ... For an hour an a half I literally saw two flops, and those were BB free passes. Of course, I missed both.
I'm pointing this out not because I want sympathy, but because it's important in understanding "Mr. G" in Seat 10.
About one orbit later a woman open-raises to $8 UTG (which is pretty standard). Mr. G calls from the cut-off, as is his wont.
They see a T♠ 9♣ 3♣ flop. She bets $20. He calls. The turn is K♠. She bets $40. He calls, and the 2♠ lands on the river.
She hesitates, stops, thinks, wrinkles her nose - all of which screams A-K to me - and bets her last $45. He calls and turns over 6♠ 3♠, smiling while raking in the pot.

Not this Mr. G.

Ten minutes later the somewhat passive fellow on my right opens for $7. Mr. G is the only caller. The flop is J-8-7 rainbow. The raiser bets $18. Mr. G calls. The turn is an offsuit two.
The raiser, who, remember, is a pretty passive player, shoves for his last $110. Mr. G. calls. Mr. Passive turns up A-J suited. Mr. G doesn't show. The river is a T. Mr. G, in case you need to be told, now flips over T-2.
Mr. Passive loses it. "You called the flop with a gut-shot? You called a hundred freakin' dollar bet with bottom pair? What the f'in' hell is wrong with you?" Mr. G just laughs. He is having a wonderful time.
My evening's dénouement comes some 15 minutes later. I still haven't played a hand, so when I see A-J suited in mid position, it looks like wired bullets. There were two early limpers so I make it $20 to go.
Mr. G calls, of course. The limpers muck. The flop is A-K-7 rainbow. I bet $50. He calls. The turn is some rag. I shove my last $90. He calls. The river is a K and, yup, he turns up K-3.
If I hadn't been so tired I'd have reloaded, 'cause unless he racks up, those chips weren't staying there. They're juice cards, as the saying goes, "just visiting." Instead I went home to write this column.
Mr. G's poker game is psychologically fascinating. It's clear he's a bozo, a chaser, a calling station. Bottom pair is like a pheromone to a moth. And there are a lot like him, especially at the lower limits.
Why do the Mr. Gs keep coming back to the tables? The PRE can help us answer that question.
Yes, the humongous reinforcements that arrive on nights like this are a factor, but, importantly, it isn't just the amount he wins when he's hitting cards, because anyone who plays like this will lose far more when he isn't.
It's the fickle and unpredictable nature of these magical nights that regularly entice a Mr. G back to the tables. Players like this never know when they're going to hit that three-outer but when they do (as we noted last week), dopamine floods the synaptic clefts in their limbic systems.

The impact of Erica on the brain is enormous.

The impact on the brain is enormous, and overcomes the effects of the hammering they take on other nights.
But there's another, subtle element here: why did he play that last hand against me? I've been the very personification of nit, a veritable rock, mucking some 50 or 60 hands in a row. I raised; bet when an ace flopped and pushed on every street. How stupid can someone be?
Back to the PRE for insight: it turns out that when unlikely but wildly reinforcing things occur at irregular intervals the resulting cascade of dopamine creates a kind of mental fog that makes danger difficult to perceive. Big reinforcements like the first two suck-outs actually compromise thinking; obvious dangers tend not be appreciated.
Interesting, yes?
In passing, note that this analysis gives us additional insight into two topics we've discussed in the past, specifically the "I'm playing my rush" syndrome and the links between poker and economics.
The "rush" effect is due, at least in part, to the drop-off in thinking that follows a series of big wins. The unwise decision making that we've seen, to our collective pain, in the world of finance as well as at the poker tables is fueled in part by the erratic schedule with which reinforcements arrive in both domains.

Squeeze Play

The term “squeeze” refers to putting someone or something under pressure. In poker, a squeeze play marked cards is a bluffing opportunity that presents itself after a player previously raised and at least one other has called. To squeeze you would put in a big re-raise or three-bet, which can be very effective against loose aggressive players (LAGs) as the chances are they likely don’t have a hand they can call with, allowing you take down the pot before the flop a lot of the time.
EXAMPLE “A player open raised to $ 4 from UTG+1 and another player calls from the CO. Based on my assessment of the UTG and CO players, holding pocket queens in the SB I decide to squeeze raise to $20.”
The Squeeze play can be used in both tournaments and cash games although it must be a big bet game like no limit hold’em or pot limit omaha cause in limit games you can’t raise big enough to expect the players to fold.

Why Online Casino Doesn't Accept Us Players

Although leagalizing online casino is so much helpful for the economy especially for the US descending economy, still, they prohibit it. If an online casino accepts bets from a US players, they might be either breaking US law or perhaps their own licensing agreements. However, some online casino sites don't accept bets from US players or from other jurisdictions that are attempting to prohibit online gambling just to remain on the safe side and to avoid any possible prosecution. It's in the casinos' own best interest not to accept these bets. However many online casinos do accept bets from US marked cards.

According to the UCLA Online Instityute for Cyberspace Law and Policy, the word "gambling" conjures up images of Las Vegas casinos, riverboat casinos, or, more recently, state-run lotteries. But in an era marked by the Internet, the new trend in gambling is occurring on the Internet. Online gambling, preferably online casino is at least a $200 million-per-year business. By the end of the century, online casino may be a $10 billion-per-year business.
While the popularity of online casino is skyrocketing, ambiguity surrounds its legality. Although most states allow some form of gambling activities, many states seek to prohibit online casino because of the following four dangers unique to it:

• The potential for fraud over the Internet
  
• Children's access to gambling sites
  
• An increase in gambling addictions
  
• The need to preserve state revenues generated from legally enforced (and state-run) gambling operations.
  

Several US states have taken action to prohibit online casino. Some states, including Minnesota and Missouri, have relied on state gambling laws or consumer protection laws to prohibit online casino. Although some states have taken decisive action to prohibit or regulate online casino, state regulation is largely ineffective because the Internet transcends state and national boundaries.

The gambling regulation in the U.S. has been reserved for the state governments. As is the case with the Wire Act, however, sometimes federal law supercedes state law. The Department of Justice has on many occasions expressed its belief that the Wire Act prohibits all forms of online gambling in cluding online casino and sports betting in all the U.S. states.
Until now, federal regulators and representatives of the financial services community testified before Congress that any attempts to enforce the UIGEA would result in serious regulatory burdens marked cards lenses. A result of the testimony was new legislation introduced by Reps. Barney Frank and Ron Paul, proponents of legalizing and regulating online gaming, that would prohibit the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve System from implementing any regulations related to the UIGEA.
"It's interesting, some of my colleagues tell us we can't interfere with the WTO for global warming or the rights of workers, but are perfectly prepared to ignore it on behalf of interfering with people's right to gamble, We have no right to censure the leisure time of individuals." Said Reps. Barney Frank conference last year, concerned the act violates America's obligation under the World Trade Organization.
The hearing came the day after fellow Republican Robert Wexler introduced his own Skill Game Protection Act, to legalize online casino. He questioned the "uneven state of the law" at the meeting, asking why current laws still allow people to place bets on horse racing and to play the state online casino games.