Yea, I put a question mark after the bills drawn up as an edit but I guess you had already hit the reply. I dont think they have anything with getting the bills drawn up, but I am hoping that they have some influence with getting the politicians to start the process of drawing them up.

It does seem wrong to call themselves the "poker players" alliance when they are clearly catering to the corporate gaming. However, they can call themselves whatever they want if they get me a bill legalizing poker that doesn't completely screw me as a player. Sadly, it appears as though the Reid bill is turning into a **** storm. Even worse, it seems as if we are going to have no input in the bill and wont even know the final language to the bill until possibly hours before it passes.

One thing is certain; if some version of the bill similar to what we've seen goes through, it's going to be a huge payday for FTP. They will snap sell themselves to CEC, MGM, or someone for ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

I tend to think all the potential buyers would severely undervalue FTP. The legislation is going in the direction of non-competitiveness to the favor of US casinos, so I'd expect those casinos to think FTP should be desperate and FTP will probably disagree.

And if they did purchase FTP they'd have to relocate its entire infrastructure to the US from Ireland or wherever, and in doing so they might be forced to shut down their international business (which represents close to half of their revenue by now I think) in order to apply for and maintain their license.

I doubt they could even get away with opening a US-only branch of FTP, because if they own the international business too I'm pretty sure that'd conflict with the terms of their license.

Plus the US casinos pursuing internet poker have already invested tons in their own software. I doubt they'd want to rebrand everything, either. They're probably counting on their internet poker brand also serving as exposure for their B&M.

This is the dead opposite of how casinos operate. They relentlessly buy up other gaming operators. It's why we're saddled with gigantic conglomerates like MGM-Mirage and Caesars Entertainment Corporation. I can't see FTP not getting bought up within a couple of years of such a bill passing, and for a pretty large figure, at that.

Within a couple years when they can see the benefit of FTP's international business maybe. If it does happen I think it'll happen that way, either soon before the deadline for FTP/Stars to reenter the market, or soon after the deadline for licensees to accept international business.

If that's the case though I don't think that'd be much to our benefit as players.

Lately I'm much less enthusiastic about the bill. Canada is cold this time of year.

I'm pretty sure whoever buys FT is going to pay a huge premium... the market is expected to quadruple with legislation and they have the rights to rush (that no one else has).

The worse the bill gets, the more I'm beginning to think Reid + Co are getting desperate to appear to be working hard and want to put on a good show for their supporters. I don't think you can blame the PPA - they are just one of a bunch of voices in an unbelievably inefficient process.

skall's latest post on the bill in leg forum:

Fixed that part. What should be pointed out is that what is or is not acceptable to the PPA is precisely what is or is not acceptable to their corporate backers, not us. This post yet again makes the disingenuous implication that they're talking about what is or is not acceptable to poker players. But, in fact, that has nothing to do with anything. There are massive financial interests on either side of this bill, some of which have the muscle to create language in the bill that the IGC and other gaming special interests and their armies of lobbyists find unpalatable. Again, it has nothing to do with us.

Skallagrim is correct that this should be (yet another) wakeup call that the Senators don't care about us and that we have to start taking control of our own fate in the poker world instead of relying on corporations and politicians to keep things hospitable for us. I wish I had some awesome idea to propose to solve the problem of the degenerative state our livelihoods are in, but I do not. Keeping discussions on the matter active seems like the best course of action for now, as it at least has the possibility of producing actionable ideas as we continue to collectively brainstorm on the matter.

Worth a read..... from full tilt - pretty shady and everyone should know about this

They let some guy who plays HU sngs change his name for no reason - did it mid game by mistake - and then lied about it to cover it up

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/11...8/index19.html

link fixed sorry
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...8/index20.html

here's one way to get up after a -14 BI day.

nice, well done!!

hell yeah dude! even with da professional at the FT (he's an mtt beast from what i hear)

holla!

nice pizzle!! did u close out all ur tables when u got deep?

yeah but mostly because I was losing so much playing cash that if I kept playing even winning the tourney wasn't going to get me back in the green for the day. Games sucked today anyway.

well done sir....

makes me think I've just never won a single tourney in my whole life....

Way to go PF!

Well done Pizzle

gg

nice score pizzle

+1

mmm....

I wonder if a guy from the *****Offcial MTT Regs thread***** would get the same enthousiam if he posted "hey guys, today I won 4BI's at 50NL FR" + screenshot of 500BB stack.

a win is a win bro