Health Insurance for Online Poker Players?

These days everybody is talking about health insurance and how to get the best coverage.  For online poker players, obtaining such insurance might be easier than originally thought.  So what's the catch?

Poker News Daily reports that the World Poker Association (WPA) will now be offering such health insurance to its members.

The poker news website recently sat down with the WPA's Tom Franklin who explained how the health insurance works:

"Anyone who is a member of the WPA can get it. They can call up, say that they're a member of the WPA, and ask how much it costs. When we get to 20 or 30 players taking advantage of it, we can have the best pricing possible. A lot of poker players don't have the opportunity to receive any other health insurance since they don't have a formal job. The insurance we receive is pretty reasonable. You can get really good comprehensive insurance for $350 per month."

The mission of the World Poker Association is simple:

"First, we're trying to get the perfect rulebook and I think we're close. In Mississippi, I wrote the standards for every Grand Casino in the state, including poker. When they're absolute, they're great rules.

"The next step is to have penalties for those who break the rules. It's just like disciplining a child. If you tell a child that you'll break their arm, it has no effect because you won't actually break it. If you say you'll put them time out for 30 minutes and then do it, it has an effect. In Mississippi, we brought down all of the poker room managers to be in on the discussion. I interpreted the rules for them. We did it all together so that everyone interpreted the rules the same."

Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher