Slugger
I can't call the article up from my phone but the a Pocketfives February 14. article.... Reid jobs extension bill needed to be a clean bill...... Reid and UIGEA mastermind Kyl are reportedly trying to find a bill to attach it to. Seems to me they had an agreement even if it wasn't public.

Some intuition you got...(...)

*rolling eyes

is this a comprehensive bill?

there is a legitimate possibility that the U.S. Congress will try to pass a federal bill to regulate online poker when Congress ends its current session at the end of December

^^ does this mean, stars in the USA again? cuz that is all i care about, im happy with merge as is and dont care much about a new site.

Hope it works out, but I'll be pessimistic for now.

Perhaps eventually, but almost certainly not in the near term unless their lawyers and lobbyists are doing a waaaay better job than everyone expects.

Since Nevada has the ball rolling as far as licensing, and casinos already starting to partner, I expect we are in the blackout period. I don't think cards would be in the air immediately if a bill is passed, but I would guess it would be considerably shorter than the 18 month blackout period they wanted before.

The way i see it is that we have been experiencing the blackout since April 2011. But instead of 18 months we have been handed a 20+ month blackout.

Maybe the people behind the scenes knew the timeline and was gauging some things by telling us about an 18 month blackout. Who knows maybe bf and what we hope for this lame duck session was all part of the deal between kyl/reid back in 2010.

Get the tin foil hats out!!!!!!!

Btw.....i dont care either way, i just want my pokerz back asap.

Another note: im on mobile so dont bash my grammar.

Blind optimism ITT
Slavish adherence to only working within the system ITT (yay PPA!!11)

In any case, by the time "cards are in the air", poker will be significantly closer to being solved, especially in the minbet games.

You people are largely missing the target in the first place.

Hopefully they do it on Christmas break when nobody else will be there to vote against them.

I would giggle so hard.

TA,

I addressed this with you a couple of days ago, so I'll be more direct this time to make it clear to everyone else just how wrong you are here with your terrible suggestion.

Surely you don't think Sen. Kyl woke up one day and decided to work on a bill licensing online poker, do you? You think casinos decided to come together on this after past opposition? I hope not, because that's not what happened. Rather, poker players did a lot of work on this to educate lawmakers on the issue and on the support it has.

Advocacy is the engine driving this. If lawmakers don't hear from us, they won't know of the support for licensing that is out there. More importantly, they won't realize how hard passing a bill expanding the Wire Act to ban online poker would be against tough, organized, passionate resistance. If they don't hear from us now, many (especially in the House) may balk at the bill and assume they can just ram a Wire Act expansion through later. They will fail, but that could cost us our shot here.

So, life isn't always as you may imagine from the comfort of your couch. There are plenty of us out there will real data on what's going on and how our efforts are perceived. You should listen to us and at least get the real data, rather than daydreaming about how you think things are and then making posts harmful to the effort.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!

The battle doesn't start when the bill goes out. The battle on this specific bill started 18 months ago. The bill itself, should it get introduced, will represent the victory, not the starting point.

Just because you haven't been there for the fight doesn't mean there hasn't been one.

+100000000000000000 points to Mr. Muny

What sorts of things would contribute to the 12-18 month pause? Black out period? Surely the casinos already have software in place (at least the smart ones....Cal Shark, Golden Nugget etc)

There are no guarantees, of course, but we are hearing that gaming opponents are very concerned that states will push ahead with full casino gaming run by state lotteries as state-granted monopolies (with an expectation that Congress will enforce state-to-state trade barriers). These lawmakers see that it's "now or never," so to speak, so many wish to do something. Anything they do legislatively will have to include poker licensing if they wish to have a chance of passage.

Some there are hanging onto the dream of addressing this in a future term of Congress by expanding the Wire Act to ban all online gaming -- even state-authorized intrastate online gaming. We need to do our part to show them now that the grassroots opposition to this will be fierce and that they'll be trying to close the barn doors after the horses bolt.

TE,

You didn't address this paid member of the PPA's concern, you simply posted "No. Just no." with a crazy face picture behind it.

I politely responded that I'm not suggesting maintaining radio silence, I'm suggesting we don't launch a targeted attack focused on the movement of this specific legislation.

I received no response.

A tweet from me saying "@Senate Still enjoy playing online poker, too bad I had to leave my country to do it" is in no way going to have a negative impact.

A 1000 tweets from the average NVG poster saying "@Senate you ****tards better let this Reid/Kyle poker bill pass!!!" might have a negative impact.

If you can't see that, or don't realize that this thread is more likely to inspire tweets of the second kind than the first, then you don't understand your audience.

While I do not agree with slugggers optimism I do believe it's an important time for online poker. If we are not successful this time we are not likely to have another opportunity for a long time, if ever. Like Ben Franklin said of the constitution "I don't agree with all of it but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to know it's. Wrong" (sorry, from memory). We must do it now even if we are not in agreement on how. Give these guys the benefit of the doubt.

LOL at "working within the system" being a problem. People who don't think we need to do that usually suggest something like yelling at lawmakers to tell them it's ridiculous, as if they'll see the light and move on legislation.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. We learned that when UIGEA passed in 2006 and we re-learned it again on Black Friday.

Sometime in 2014 or 15 would be perfect for me.

What? I'm not advocating that whatsoever. My view is that we, starting after UIGEA passed, should have pushed the game further underground. I have no interest in helping any legislator "see the light". Hell, entrenched politicians are unable to see the light in the FIRST place, let alone on an issue that can be easily opposed by the moral crusaders.

Backing off is just the wrong direction right now. Everything we're hearing on the Hill suggests that we need to keep it up. We should be at least 10X where we are now, so I hope everyone will jump aboard.

If I can find time to put together action plans and to respond to questions while on vacation with my wife in Las Vegas, surely everyone here can take a few minutes to take action.

You received one in my earlier replies. I had already mentioned that we need to have a full-court press.

Courteous posts will have only positive impact.

I monitor all the tweets and FB posts. Everyone has been very professional and respectful.

In b4 page 10000

Sometimes folks just go on tilt, then post personal attacks on ranking Republican members of key House Committees ?

The truth is, "backing off", meaning not urging passage, is never going to help pass a bill, regardless of the subject/content. Players contacting legislators is not going to suffice to pass squat, but it helps pass something someone else brings to the real table, even if only a little bit compared to industry input.

this is great news. Hopefully the news gets more positive from hear on out.

Thought this post was overlooked a bit. Not that's it's relevant to the conversation or anything... Just imagining how f'n JUICY these games will be. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Good to hear something positive on this front for a change.

But this session is a critical time to get legislation passed, right? Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but hasn't Jon Kyl has gone from staunchly anti-poker to now being on our/the casinos side? I'm assuming it depends on his successor, but if this doesn't pass prior to his retirement is it going to be a big blow to the progress of internet poker legislation?


Also

ZOMG got my pouch ready