Poker players excited about lobbying week

In Washington DC this week, the Poker Players Alliance is hoping that their movement will help efforts to legalize online poker.

The PPA has set up almost 100 meetings this week, “National Poker Week”, with members of Congress and Congressional aides. They are planning to present a petition to President Obama on Wednesday with more than 350,000 signatures. Some well known poker pros like Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Greg Raymer and Andy Bloch are participating in the event.

A charity poker game was hosted last night with all the proceeds going to benefit the USO and Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The Poker Players Alliance, chaired by former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., gets its money from the Interactive Gaming Council, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based trade association for online casinos, as well as from the alliance's poker player members.
In 2006, Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which aimed to curb online gambling by prohibiting financial institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers. The law didn't provide a clear definition of unlawful Internet gambling, instead referring to existing federal and state laws, which themselves provoke differing interpretations.
The Justice Department maintained that Internet gambling was illegal even before that law, a position the poker players challenge. Their goal is to pass legislation that would license and regulate online poker.
On Monday, the players hosted a congressional staff briefing, aimed at showing how online poker can be effectively regulated in the U.S. Staffers from about 20 congressional offices attended the meeting, according to the poker group.
The event had the feel of an infomercial. John Pappas, the poker group's executive director, asked questions of the panelists that inevitably ended with friendly responses.
"What about children?" asked Pappas. Is it possible, he asked, to create an online environment that allows adults to play but keeps minors off?
Yes, responded panelist Parry Aftab, founder and executive director of WiredSafety.org, a New York-based cyber-safety group. She pointed to parental control technology on computer operating systems.
And panelist Paul Mathews, an independent consultant and a former executive with International Game Technology, said online gambling can actually help decrease pathological gambling by letting players set limits on how much they want to bet or lose ahead of time.
But Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, which opposes online gambling, was not moved by any of that.
"We still don't support it," she said in a telephone interview. "When you start gambling on the Internet, it's just too accessible. You can do it from home, and it's so much easier. We just feel like that's an issue that has a tendency to break up the family."
Combs didn't seem concerned that the poker group's efforts would have much of an impact.
"I don't think it's going to come up" in Congress, she said. "If we think it will, then we definitely will work it hard."
The poker group supports legislation by Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, that would regulate rather than ban Internet gambling.
In its petition to Obama, titled "Poker is Not a Crime," the group pushes for poker to be exempted from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, and for licensing and regulating of online poker.
At least half the $16 billion Internet gambling industry, which is largely hosted on overseas sites, is estimated to be fueled by U.S. bettors.
The federal government recently froze more than $30 million in the accounts of payment processors that handle the winnings of thousands of online poker players. The Poker Players Alliance is trying to get that money returned.

News Added: 22 July, 2009

Number of views : 864