If you haven’t heard it before, there’s a term that has become popular lately, especially in the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystems. However, it can apply to virtually anything, including poker. FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, and is used to describe information disseminated that serves no purpose other than to spread false truths and create acrimony for a particular topic. A former US Senator from Arkansas could now be known as the Queen of FUD.

In writing an op-ed piece for the Financial Times, Blanche Lincoln compared online poker to terrorism. In an effort to support her belief, she pulled out the 2017 FBI Internet Crime Report, which provides data on “victim counts” for activities conducted through the Internet.

Lincoln said in her article, “The FBI’s 2017 Internet Crime Report revealed that the victim count and financial losses suffered as a result of online gambling surpassed that of terrorism-related cybercrimes last year. It is this clear pattern of targeting the helpless that stands out to me.”

First, the mere fact that someone could compare online gambling to terrorism is mind-boggling. But that’s a topic for a different day. It’s more important to just deal with the facts.