The world of online poker is strange, shady and more than a little depressing. So what better place to start our national online poker experiment than Washington D.C? Digital Hold'em is coming to D.C.

D.C.'s city council passed a budget last year that allows for local online poker sites which are "accessible only inside district boundaries." The time for any objections is almost up, which means the rule could go into affect as early as Thursday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But isn't online poker already legal? Not really. A 2006 federal law bans the financial transactions necessary for online gambling. (As we learned when we tried to bet on last year's World Cup.) All those college online poker addicts must beam their parents' cash to companies in the Cayman Islands, or God-knows-where, to feed the beast.

So, hooray states rights: D.C. joins a number of states who are considering legalizing poker in their domains. Internet poker is the most addictive thing ever, so all of these states will soon become gambling-addled wastelands and eventually band together to form the Confederacy of Poker. They will take over America and we will become the world's first Pokerocracy.

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