Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEngineer
Thanks for thinking of ideas on this.
I'm not sure why you you think PPA is "so against" it? I don't recall anyone commenting on it at all yet.
I don't think this would result in a big reduction of sales, but it could bring negative attention. For now, though, why would be boycott them all? Some opposed Reid/Kyl because it limited their ability to sell tickets online. I think they had a right to say something. Others, though, did oppose online poker specifically, like the NH lottery.
I imagine anything along these lines would be directed at the specific lotteries in opposition, right?
Here is a post that sums up my reasoning that I sent in response to someone asking questions about my post on one of the state lottery pages:
I am a member of the Poker Players Alliance. Governors in almost all states are against legislation that would allow online poker to be regulated on a national level. Also most state lotteries are against national legislation to regulate online poker and open up the market to competition and commercial propagation.
We believe that online poker can only thrive in a competitive market because states have a horrible history of predatory pricing in their lotteries. The evidence suggests that they cannot be trusted to provide a product of adequate value to consumers of that product because they have unilateral power to overcome objections to the product they decide to provide. We also strongly believe that even if they could provide a product that was comparable to what might be offered in a free market, that allowing them to have a monopoly would be against the US Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
This is especially true because one of the tenets of Commerce Clause is that exclusivity in a commercial activity can only be allowed if there is a real conceptual objection to the underlying activity. That means that because most states either promote or allow widespread gambling or both, that they have to either open up that commercial activity to price competition or eliminate the activity entirely. That means that state lotteries cannot legally promote their games without allowing competition in their games. Once the line is crossed from mere tolerance to overt endorsement the legal basis for the concentration of the regulated activity erodes and becomes challengable.
This concept also applies to dualistic situations where revenue sharing agreements exist between Indian tribes. Because Indian tribes are Federally regulated their activity's fall within the scope of national on line poker regulation and that is why there is no boycott against them. There have been proposed boycotts against individual Indian tribes that have tried to participate in the same type of protective exclusivity that most states are currently advocating for. Just because we are boycotting the lottery does not mean we are against the concept of having lotteries.
We are against the current unconstitutional predatory pricing of lottery products and those organizations attempts to circumvent citizens wishes in the development of the skill game of poker. As a result we are asking the Congress to intercede and to set the conditions that would allow for both public and private businesses to have a chance to show the price advantages that are inherent in a free market. That is why we are asking people not to play their state lotteries until Congress passes legislation that provides the framework for the regulation of on line poker