Bwarney Fwank had his PPA buddies up for a visit yesterday:
Poker Players Lobby Lawmakers To License Online Games
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–Poker enthusiasts are visiting the Capitol this week to make their case to lawmakers that online gaming can be regulated effectively and doesn’t need to be banned outright.
John Pappas, head of lobbying group Poker Players Alliance, said legislation to license and regulate online poker would ensure protections for compulsive gamblers and minors.
All the protections that online sites in the U.S. use now are voluntary, Pappas said Monday at a congressional briefing.
Pappas wants lawmakers to act before December to clarify a law that could ban banks from helping online poker sites distribute money among players. Without action, banks could vacate the market and leave the money distribution to less-reputable organizations, he said.
U.S. law prohibits most forms of Internet gambling. State prosecutors recently seized millions from online poker sites, angering players and advocates who believe their online gaming activities are legitimate.
The European Commission also has threatened to challenge the U.S. ban on Internet gambling at the World Trade Organization, saying the prohibition violates international trade rules.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has proposed legislation to legalize and regulate Internet gambling so revenue could be taxed and consumers would have some protections.
A similar bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Pappas said.
According to the Poker Players Alliance, there are 10 million Americans who play online poker for money, spending about $6 billion a year.
The alliance has argued in court that online poker doesn’t violate the existing law because it is a game of skill, rather than a game of chance.
Wagers are made against other players of varying ability, not against a “house” as an illegal gambling game might be run, the alliance argued in petitions to U.S. attorneys in New York and California. Moreover, a poker “bet” mischaracterizes the actual activity in poker, the petition stated, saying a poker bet is more like a “move” in any other game.
I think it’s clever to redefine the meaning of “bet” as a “move” but I don’t think it’s going to work. You’re still putting a variable amount of money into the game and whether or not you receive that money back is at least partially a teeny weeny bit dependent on a random occurrence. It’s a bet and in the loosest sense of the term, it IS gambling.
(”this blog will self destruct in 10, 9, 8, …”)
At least according to the way most state laws are written.
(”Abort self destruct”)
That said, I do think that there is hardly any difference between horse racing and poker – you’re not betting against the house with odds against you, you’re betting against other people’s opinions on an outside event – so why is the former legal and the latter not?
The same argument could be made for sports betting, too, although the potential for corruption is a lot higher because said outside event is beyond the control of the party hosting the betting game or a regulatory body that would be tasked with its administration, and, frankly, I don’t want to see a U.S. Deparment of Sports Gaming Administration patrolling the sideline at Rice Stadium just to make a legal football bet in Texas.
Regardless of ALL of this, I think the PPA is doing a good job and I think they’re fighting the good fight. What has to happen is that a brand new law with brand new poker-specific definitions will need to be written – it’s kind of clever to try and play the semantics game and hope a judge somewhere buys in (like people THINK is the case in California, but not really).
And while I like the effort, that seems to be too complicated compared to just lobbying a few Congressmen and promising a new source of money to spend on airports. They’ll jump at that.
