I'm not someone from the PPA, don't hold your breath waiting for a reply from them. But, from just what has been posted in this forum over the last few years I believe I can answer these questions
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Originally Posted by PTLou
Sorry but I cant seem to let this go.
Do I have these facts correct ?
1) PPA collects donations for years from millions of individual poker players under the pretense they support US players rights to play online poker via support of online poker legislation
It probably hasn't been millions, there are only about 10K paying members. $150k/yr for ten years, my estimation is about $1.5M total from players.
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2) PPA then works against a online poker bill in CA because it includes a bad actor clause for AmayaStars.
They say over and over again that they aren't against the bill, just the amendment. Mostly semantics because the bill is as amended, they are inextricably linked at this point and they know they are helping assure this bill dies as the session runs out.
Before the CA legislature went on recess, when the PPA was proudly supporting the Gray bill, with the Bad Actor Clause in it but the 'brightline' after Black Friday allowing Pokerstars in, I asked John Pappas if they would still support the bill when the bright line was moved back to 2006.
His reply was that the PPA would support the bill in any form as long as player protections were intact.
Obviously that was BS, because the player protections weren't removed with the last amendment, only the bright line.
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3) Amaya is currently a large (largest?) source of funding for PPA
The bulk of funding for the PPA has come from the IGC, an international trade association based in Canada. So they can tell you with a straight face that Pokerstars is not their source of funding.
But Pokerstars has been a big source of funding for the IGC, so ...
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PPA should be promoting safe, legal online poker in the U.S. not trying to pick winners or losers, or influence who should or should not be operators.
If any of the above is wrong then I apologize in advance.
I agree that the PPA should be promoting player protections above all else. But I also understand that the players are not really that supportive of the PPA, not enough to send them money anyway, so how much of a say we have in what they do reflects that.
They are what they are, at least a slight positive in the fight. Certainly not a negative.
But their credibility is based on the lie that they represent the interests of players. And by having their nose so far up Pokerstars' backside, they are actually undermining the claim that players want consumer protections/regulations, etc.
The chorus of complaints from high profile players is growing rapidly after this latest debacle in CA. We may have come to the point where we as players must come out and publicly disavow the PPA.
They certainly don't speak for me