Casinos without borders: ‘I moved to Mexico to keep my job playing online poker’

“Effectively, there’s no online gambling in the United States.” Shane Schleger is a professional poker player with a remarkably chill grin on his face, considering. “Well,” he goes on, “except for fantasy sports. The fantasy sports lobby is strong, I guess.”

Shane collects all his income from the biggest online poker portal in the world, PokerStars. For eleven hours a day he’s plugged into their software, playing in a dozen simultaneous tournaments at any given time, which amounts to five or six thousand hands every day. Needless to say, he’s good at it: he’s part of the site’s elite “Team Online,” and in addition to the money he wins at the virtual tables he’s also compensated for simply trotting his avatar (“shaniac”) out in public — his mere virtual presence inspires other players to buy more chips. His screen optimization isn’t just impressive: it’s a competitive edge.

And get this, haters: he’s a Mac and a PC.