Can anyone confirm that these things are true:
1. PPA took in 22million last year
2. PPA spent only 1.5million
3. PPA is not a non-profit

They WERE permabanned from the US market and still continued to operate in the US. They just decided on their own that they weren't breaking the rules, while a majority of the pokersites withdrew. It was short-sided on their part and now it is time to pay the piper. At that point, their interests and the interests of the players were not aligned any more, as they lost any legitimacy they may have had. Stars has a big enough share in the Euro market to survive, but FTP and UB will probably go away.

Shrug, think we're gonna just have to agree to disagree because our views on this are so far apart. Stars was never perma-banned from the US and Party was the only major site to withdraw, mostly due to the fact that they were a publicly traded company unlike Stars/FTP. Either way it wasn't close to the majority of sites.

Our interests have generally been aligned with those of the FT/PS. That's obviously subject to change at this point.

I do think the PPA would be better off without the FT influence on the board and probably needs to cut off funding from the IGC, but that comes with downsides as well (namely a lot less funding). They are evaluating how to proceed here.

I also think the communication strategy needs improvement. Sending out that press release carries big risk should FT not follow up by paying out players. This is especially true given the board's ties to Lederer and Ferguson.

I think the organization needs to be more open to questioning its strategy and tactics. I was particularly disappointed that TE couldnt list a single mistake the PPA had made. Admitting mistakes is not a weakness and learning from mistakes is a crucial way for an organization to improve. Id say that TE and Skall need to be less defensive when dealing with the poker player community...but after reading this thread Id say that's asking more of them than I previously thought.

So its not a perfect organization. We all know that. While that should be the goal we work towards, its not close to a reasonable standard to hold the PPA to.

Screaming that they havent gotten legislation passed though....have you guys been on here for long? The only Federal legislation with a chance of passing was the Reid bill and half of us didn't want it to pass. How would the reaction have been if they had helped pass an intrastate bill that limited players to one or two small, in rake, in state sites? A significant minority, at the very least, were opposed to anything that would shake the status quo and more were opposed to any sort of compromise that we could reasonably reach to license and regulate poker.

Even if you think they haven't done the job as well as you think they should have....like is there something specific they've done some of you are so angry at? Did you donate a lot of time and treasure that got wasted? Why the need to attack their motives as opposed to their strategy? The disappointment I can understand, but why the massively high level of vitriol for people who put time and effort into trying to make sure you can play poker?

I've been a PPA member for several years and I respect some of what they've done, however, in the last week I've been EXTREMELY disappointed in the lackluster response of the PPA. They should have had representatives like Al D'amato (and MANY big Celeb players, Matt Damon anyone?) on every news/talk show in the country and had editorial/opinion pieces in every major newspaper and magazine. There are times for low-key politicking and quietly pushing bills, now is not that time. With the high-profile events of last Friday, PPA should have been pushing hard for legalization/regulation.

Not one more dime of my money will the PPA see until I see some action (and I've donated in the hundreds of dollars over the last 3 years as well as acting on e-mail campaigns and etc..). NOW IS THE TIME TO STAND UP!!! I call bull**** on this idea that 'we can't be associated with criminal groups like PS/FT/UB' , FINE, push for legaliztion for onshore companies but DO SOMETHING!!!

http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/21...-online-poker/

The PPA has been active on Capitol Hill since 2005, and vaulted to prominence in the wake of the UIGEA’s passage. It counts 1.2 million members, rents a booth at CPAC and spent $1.8 million on lobbying expenditures in 2010. Since its founding, its PAC has doled out $285,000 to members of Congress, Pappas says. “The PPA has argued as an organization for a long time, and tried to let the poker community know, that the status quo was probably not tenable,” he says. “Either legislatively or legally, someone was going to try to restrict their right to play even further. That’s why we wanted to see a regulatory system established where the U.S. government was issuing the licenses and making this clearly legal.”

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/21...#ixzz1KDO0nctI

Opensecrets.org is where I pull all my political donation info from.

If you just use their search engine to look for Poker Players Alliance you get these results:
http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/i...ORID%3A11#1650

They are going to support the group that gives them the most money, just like the politicians they are bribing. At this point, however, I think the Nevada Casino groups have more money and political power than the PPA, who has been a thorn in their side due to the PPA's funding from FTP/Stars. I think the Nevada Casinos will probably get something passed without the help of the PPA, yet the PPA will send a mass email praising themselves. Just like the other guy posted, we are getting rainmade.

i'll address the rest of your post in a bit, but first:

the reid bill didn't even make it to a vote. let's ignore that half of the players didn't want it to pass. this was the closest we've had to a PPA influenced (and lol @ the influences they brought...iirc it was a drop in the blackout period by 5 months to a ****ing year, right?) piece of legislation passing and it didn't even make it to a vote

this can't be serious. why the massively high level of vitriol? I CANNOT ****ING PLAY ONLINE POKER WITHOUT MOVING TO ANOTHER ****ING COUNTRY! this isn't 5 year olds playing soccer where the score doesn't matter and everyone gets a participation award. what ****ing good is the time or effort if nothing has been achieved? why am i supposed to respect utter failure, and not only utter failure, but utter failure that has already collected 22 million from players and still asks for more?

I appreciate all the hard work people like Engineer, Skall, etc have done for us in the name of the PPA, they unfortunately have gotten themselves caught up with an organization that in my mind has wasted its resources using tactics that have been proven fruitless...and not even just fruitless but 100% ineffective...just like how my life is now changed the PPA needs to change, they are ineffective plain and simple.

do people really believe the PPA has some kind of pull or opinion that is respected by anyone of importance? The only thing they have really done is take donations and give nothing in return

The PPA didnt indict the poker sites or pass the UIGEA or block licensing legislation from passing.

Deciding not to contribute to the organization because you feel its ineffective or a waste of time seems like a reasonable choice to me. Screaming like a kid who just dropped his ice cream at a group that wants you to be able to play online poker, seems at best useless and at worst counterproductive, but everyone vents in their own way I guess.

If you want to look at the prior year tax returns you can use the following link.
http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990s...ch/esearch.php Type poker in the search box and you can see the prior returns through 2009 (2010 is not due yet). The entity is a 501(c)(4) versus a 501(c)(3) which basically means that it is a nonprofit entity to the IRS but your contribution is not tax deductible. In 2009, the PPA received around 5.8 million and spent 6.4 million (they had around 600,000 in accrued liablities).

Other than a big NEGATIVE event like last Friday, the media does not really care about poker either way.

If there were press conferences, I doubt anyone from say CNN or Fox would even show up, instead telling them, send us a statement and we may report it if we have a few dead seconds.

Even when the Frank Bill passed committee, there was little to no coverage, no one cared (except us of course).

Poker, in short, is really not important to 98% of the country.

obg

Why so much hate for the PPA? Lobbies derive their power from money and the voting bloc of those they represent. It's true that the PPA is not strong enough, but cutting their funding or discouraging donations won't help poker players voice their concerns to congress. I won't be voting on the issue of online poker alone (with so many more pressing concerns in this country), but if we could convince national politicians that they could win or loss 1 million votes on this issue, progress would start to be made. Yes, the PPA failed, and so did those they represent... US. Seems to me that we need to work harder now, and starting by tearing down the strongest voice we have in washington seems so foolish.

The silence in the last week from that 'strongest voice' has been deafening.

The PPA is a for profit organization??? How much are the officers and employees of the PPA paid?

Hey, poker isnt my livelihood. You want to throw a tantrum its your choice. Wont help anything, but feel free.

It was not nearly this clear, a lot of legal minds think they have a good chance to win the poker side of the battle, at least in theory if it was to actually take place in court

They filled the void, it was good business, if they hadn't maybe cake or someone else would have been the top dog for a while and ft would have just gone out of business instead. They made a fortune and knew this day would come if they didn't pass something federally, which almost happened.

They allowed us to continue playing online, how are these interests not aligned? Would we be in a better spot right now if poker had just floundered for the last few years (esp when the religious right had more clout) and no one from the US could play online?

Obviously the miniscule weak PPA isnt gonna do anything to the DoJ.

it's like clay aiken vs brock lesnar

If you actually took the time to read where the money was spent you would be LOL.

lol. not a ****ing chance. 1 million votes in a single state would get their attention, 1 million over a country is a teardrop in the ocean. and that's one of the most frustrating things to me. the PPA keeps saying "PHONE YOUR CONGRESSMAN!" "E-MAIL YOUR CONGRESSMAN!" there isn't a single district in america where enough people give a **** about online poker enough that they're enough of a voting bloc that they would have the ear of their congressman.

so when that bull**** doesn't work it's because we're apathetic. it's because we don't care enough.

thanks you pretentious fanboi. glad you gave me your approval

Not for nothing most poker players are poker players because their lazy (especially online players) so trying to get thousands of them together for a rally or anything like that will be tough, especially if it isn't for a major poker tournament.

Not to mention most poker players are losing players or very small stakes players so not having online poker isn't really that big of a deal to most online players. Personally the only reason I care (besides the fact that it's a major waste of tax dollars and resources) is because I enjoy the occasional few dollar tourney or micro stakes CG to kill time. I much prefer playing live anyway.