From OnlinePokerWebsite.net:
This week Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank introduced a set of bills designed to freeze the UIGEA and allow US residents freedom to play poker on the Internet. Frank’s bill establishes the Department of the Treasury as the licensing and regulating authority, and provides for the consumer protections the gambling ban does not offer, including age and identification verification, responsible gaming systems, and measures against money laundering and cheating.
Alphonse D’Amato, chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, praised Frank and his efforts.
“Online poker is a legal, thriving industry and poker players deserve the consumer protections and the freedom to play that are provided for in this legislation,” said D’Amato. The ex-Senator said he promised to “activate the alliances grassroots army made up of over one million members to help him drive legislation”.
The bill grants states the right to opt out, meaning states that don’t allow land-based poker do not have to accept online play. Licenses will only be awarded to operators that respect the laws of individual states, so such non-gambling states as Hawaii and Utah will likely be blocked by regulated poker rooms.
Also, players used to pocketing winnings on a regular basis without reporting them to Uncle Sam will now find their take a little lighter. Frank includes clauses that require the online gambling operator to set aside taxes against winnings before paying patrons.
Still, the legal gray cloud may be lifted if the bill can pass through Congress. Monitoring for cheating will ease the minds of many online players, and security of personal information may bring thousands of new players to the Internet.
“The government should not interfere with people’s liberty unless there is a good reason,” said Frank in a press conference on Capitol Hill. “This is, I believe, the single biggest example of an intrusion into the principle that people should be free to do things on the Internet. It’s clearly the case that gambling is an activity that can be done offline but not online.”
From BluffMagazine.com:
The word is being spread that Rep. Barney Frank plans to introduce pro-gaming legislation in the days ahead. And with that news has come speculation from the poker media and beyond as to the viability of a standalone bill in favor of online gaming passing through Congress. The response from the Poker Players Alliance on the issue has been brief but strong. They have support in Congress and $3 million to lobby everyone else.
Once Frank divulged his plans to reintroduce H.R. 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, when Congress returned from their spring break this week, many applauded the upcoming effort but wondered aloud if it even had the support to break through a committee. One of the publications who posed such questions was The Hill, a Washington D.C. policy publication, which brought a fervent response from PPA chairman and former NY Senator Alfonse D’Amato in the same publication.
On April 14, 2009, D’Amato wrote, in part:
“Liberals and conservatives in and out of Congress are opposed to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act for a number of reasons: It does nothing to prevent children and problem gamblers from playing online; it overly burdens the banks, making them, not the federal government, policemen of the Internet; it costs the taxpayers billions in unearned revenue, not to mention the loss of capital and jobs when these companies are forced to move out of the U.S.; and it’s simply unenforceable… As House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and many Democratic and Republican members know, now is the time to do what’s right for all interested parties, not based on party politics. That means protecting Internet freedom and the public interest through taxation, licensing and regulation - not prohibition.”
Days later, the Associated Press reported that D’Amato said the PPA has $3 million to lobby Congress during the upcoming session. Some of the funds have been collected through the memberships of its one-million-plus member base, and more is coming from the Interactive Gaming Council in Vancouver. The Canadian trade association represents a number of online gaming websites and looks to gain from a possible U.S. pro-gaming law.
While the opposition to the yet-to-be-introduced legislation consists of a number of groups, conservative religious groups as well as sports organizations like the National Football League among them, the PPA hopes to let people know that there is widespread support for the legislation as well, and that backing spans both major political parties. And what the opposition may fail to realize is that there is more money where the Interactive Gaming Council funds came from, as the online poker industry alone has quite the investment in seeing Frank succeed.
For now, all eyes are on Rep. Frank to take the first step in the process, but the PPA, led by Chairman D’Amato, is waiting to lobby for its passage with strength that may not be underestimated for long.
Here’s an interesting list from the good people at Gambling911.com:
10. Ron Paul - This Republican gained huge support among the Internet gambling sector and for a little while anyway looked like he could make a serious run for the US Presidency. Afterall, the Texas Congressman managed to beat GOP nominee John McCain in a couple of the early campaigns and raised more money than anyone else outside of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Ron Paul even co-sponsored a piece of legislation looking to overturn the current Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. If only Fox News had paid more attention to him and the economy had fallen apart months earlier.
9. Ivan Demidov - This Russian born poker player didn’t win either the World Series of Poker or its sister event in Europe this past year. He did, however, manage what many would think is close to impossible. Demidov made the final table of both tournaments. He also finished a strong second in the 2008 WSOPE. If you think the folks aren’t embracing poker in Russia the same way those in the US did after Chris Moneymaker’s remarkable WSOP win, think again. And much of this translates into the world of online poker.
8. The Poker Players Alliance - While former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato is a strong personality, he wasn’t vocal enough to make our Top 10 on his own. And certainly PPA President John Pappas is like the cat that meows outside your window all night long but when you go to feed it, he darts off into the night. The PPA as a collective unit has made an impact on our industry that cannot be denied. To say the leadership here has been outstanding would raise a few eyebrows. To say they have done an above average job of rousing the troops is more a fair statement. They cannot afford in 2009 to drop the ball. Everything they did in 2008 has to be raised at least two notches. This is going to be a crucial year. Changes in the leadership structure might be unavoidable unless this animal is put into overdrive.
7. The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA.org) - Not much was expected of this fledgling trade organization when it came to the forefront earlier this year. Much as the industry reacted when Gambling911.com first started touting a little known online gambling company called Bodog.com in 2002, pundits laughed off iMEGA as some type of opportunists. A few even accused them of being “US government informants” - and still do for that matter. Unlike the PPA, iMEGA was especially aggressive, which eventually helped these newcomer make a fast impact. Like John Pappas, iMEGA founder, Joe Brennan, Jr., is like the cat that meows outside your window all night long, only when you go to feed him, he scratches you. That’s the story of iMEGA. They’ve been scratching and clawing this past year (a lawsuit against the US Government, filling an Appeals case against the commonwealth of Kentucky). In 2009, they will need to deliver… at least on one front. That probability is higher than 50 percent in our opinion - more so in favor of a positive outcome involving Kentucky’s online gambling domain seizure matter. It is also vital that iMEGA remains loyal to those who have supported it early in the game.
6. Joe Norton- The Former Kahnawake Chief who now oversees Absolute Poker and a few dozen other online gambling enterprises has managed to make quite a name for himself, mostly the result of a much publicized cheating scandal involving Absolute Poker he had nothing to do with. But it is his name and the Kahnawakes as a whole who arguably have helped to keep Absolute Poker in business. We’ve covered dozens of similar stories over the past 10 years Different characters, different plots, but the endings were all the same. Said company dissolves. That hasn’t happened with Absolute Poker. Joe and his crew have done well here despite what many perceived to be a “flawed” first audit of the company.
5. Barack Obama - Thoughout his long winding campaign in 2008, much of the online gambling industry rooted for the Illinois Senator to become the next President of the United States. After all, he was touted as “the poker playing President”. His runningmate’s son lobbied for PartyGaming. Whether we see a change in policy remains to be seen but in the i-Gaming sector Obama’s message of “hope” perhaps resonates more so than anywhere else.
4. Anurag Dikshit and Ruth Parasol - The two billionaire co-founders of PartyGaming, Parasol’s lobbying efforts for the online gambling industry are often unappreciated. There are many convinced that without her, the Poker Players Alliance would not exist today. Of course, Dikshit made news in recent weeks after he entered into a plea agreement with the US Government whereby one of the wealthiest men in the world must forfeit $300 million to US authorities. To put this in perspective, for Dikshit it’s like tipping the waiter a little extra in a fancy restaurant. There is plenty of anger being lodged at him by those in the poker community.
3. Spencer Bachus - Now assuming the role of arch nemesis to the online gambling sector, this Alabama Republican Congressman came up with one of the better quotes of the year: “One click of the mouse and you lose your house”. He was referring to Web gambling. Bachus has a mostly, but not totally, conservative voting record. And it shows in his tireless efforts to obliterate Internet gambling. Just how dangerous is Bachus to the industry? Here is another of his more famous quotes:
“All of these (studies) say the younger someone starts gambling, the more likelihood that they become a compulsive gambler. Addicted to gambling, just like addicted to drugs. So there is a correlation between drug dealers and gambling sites.”
2. Barney Frank - Maybe he should be first on our list. Barney - unlike our top choice - hasn’t quite brought the industry to its knees. He is one of the most powerful people in Congress and thankfully a fierce supporter of one’s right to gamble online.
Frank has also partnered with Ron Paul in support of online gambling rights. In 2006, both strongly opposed H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, and H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. To restore online gambling rights, in 2007 Frank sponsored H.R. 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act. This bill would have established licensing and regulation of online gaming sites. It provided for age verification and protections for compulsive gamblers. In 2008, he and Paul introduced H.R. 5767, the Payment Systems Protection Act, a bill that sought to place a moratorium on enforcement of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act while the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve defined “unlawful Internet gambling”. As a result of these efforts, Frank (who does not gamble) has become a hero to poker players and online gamblers, including many Republicans.
1. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear - Who else could get about two dozen of the most respected attorneys in Kentucky together in a court room defending the online gambling industry….in Kentucky of all places? When news broke in September that Beshear was looking to seize some 140 plus Web gambling domain names, there were folks in the European gaming sector who had never even heard of Kentucky. Why, there were folks in the United States who couldn’t find the state on a map! Then reality hit hard. A state best known for its bourbon, horse racing and - as we later learned - pizza (home to both Pizza Hut and Papa John’s), was about to knock more than 100 websites of the Internet, and that would only be the beginning. What seemed surreal at first quickly became a reality as a Kentucky Circuit Court judge found in favor of the commonwealth (state). Had there not been an appeal filed, all of these domain names would today be in the hands of some maniacal religious zealots whose legal counsel compared online poker room operators to child molesters. Even Spencer Bachus wouldn’t stoop that low. The honorable Judge Thomas Wingate, who ruled in favor of the commonwealth (and got plenty of flack for doing so in the local press) commented: “I’ve never seen so many lawyers in my courtroom”. This was a wake up call like no other for the industry… with ramifications extending well beyond its borders. Ask any of those 140 plus domain owners who the most influential person of online gambling is in 2008 and we seriously doubt they’ll take a moment to pause in naming Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear.
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