LOL!

flip2win-

Those of us who lurk here in legislation have been discussing, arguing, supporting and denigrating, to various degrees, the federal bills to license and regulate online poker in the US that have been running through Congress for the past several years. The current bill is HR 1174. You can read about it here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/57...light=campbell

In his defense, the Campbell/Frank bill has not really been the focus the past week and is currently not even on the first page of the legislation forum. I was actually wondering why it hasn't been talked about more after the events of last Friday. I know that this bill is still in committee and this process typically moves very slowly, but what is the current timetable and is there any evidence that this bill could be sped up in light of the current events?

It is mentioned in the latest action alert sent to all PPA members a few minutes ago.

I think this thread doesn't have much interest because most assume the Frank/Campbell bill will never make it out of the house.

There would be a lot more interest if we had word that Harry Reid had something in the works, but I haven't heard of this happening.

I keep calling the representatives and senators who are supposed to represent my area, but both of the senators are left wing nut cases who think the government's responsibility is to protect us from ourselves, and my representative in congress is a right wing nut case who doesn't believe people should be gambling. Rather than listen with an open mind, they send me propaganda supporting THEIR point of view.

I don't know who votes for these people, or why they've been in office for so damn long.

The Campbell/Frank bill isnt a i-poker bill per se. Its a bill to legalize all i-gaming except for sports gambling, isnt it? As such it faces a tougher uphill battle, as the B&M's only want legalized i-poker.

True, but if this bill made progress and Congress (likely the Senate) was of a mind to license and regulate only Ipoker, then the bill would be amended along the way. Support of HR 1174 is our best choice in Congress right now as it would give us most of what we want for Ipoker.

Read the stickies, FFS.

This can be frustrating. There are a lot of Americans fed up with a lot of political issues, yet for some reason a high percentage of politicians remain in office.

That being said, we really can't let it cause us to lose our focus.

I have tried twice to get stuff going in that thread since Friday and no one is real interested. IMHO I think the vast majority of the players were all up in arms about the money and now that that has been resolved they are most likely going to take their money and go to one of the many sites that allow US players at the moment.
Most of the people on here act like they really want to do something but when it comes down to it, the vast majority of them are going to do nothing and this will blow over and it will be back to the way it was 4 or so years ago when Party was shut down. Online poker players are lazy. Sorry but this is the truth. Good luck getting them to rally for anything of continue to send letters or call...especially after they get their money back. Sad thing is that this is all big news and everyone is up in arms right now but give it a month and it will be back to normal lol.

+1...worried about now and their money, not the future

Don't forget to vote in support for it here: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/hr1174

Yes and they forget that that is what got us here in the first place.

Front story of Time's politics section:

Can Congress Legalize Online Poker?

Right, I just think the chances of anything like Campbell/Frank bill becoming law in close to its current form is infinitesimal.

We spent hundreds of hours debating how to tweak the Frank bill last Congress, then the only bill that had a chance of passing was a bill written by Harry Reid that seemed to have almost zero connection to the Frank bill.

I'd expect if we have a chance during this Congress, it will be a similar process. Its not like Harry Reid is going to take the Frank bill as a starting point and tweak it and try to bring it through the normal legislative process. He's going to write something up that fits his proxies' needs and can get McConnell/Churchill Downs on board, then try to jam it through on a must pass bill.

So we can use the Frank/Campbell bill as a vehicle for House members to show support for the concept of I-gaming. However, we shouldn't pretend its serious legislation that has a chance of passing

Thanks. I have not been following any of the poker legislation efforts since the failed bill at the end of 2010. Since I couldn't find the thread, I just wanted to know what was going on.

Question, instead of repeal the UIGEA, how about defining "illegal internet gaming" better by way of an amendment etc. For example, an illegal internet gaming operation is a site that X, Y, Z without licensing in one of the US's trade partners as defined by (however we define trade partners)? Tack it on and get the UIGEA neutered. This would solve our problem, the wto problem, and simplify the world of the banks.

brilliant idea! Why hasn't anyone thought of this yet?

This is a great idea, and I'm surprised that some of the reg's here didn't respond. I'm not trying to flame anyone, I just don't know which politico's are out there that are "on the fence" on this issue, and would think that there are some people in this forum that would have a good insight into that.

If anyone has thoughts on this, even if it's a speculative, incomplete list at best, I would love to see who in Congress we should be actively lobbying.

It obviously makes more sense to spend our energy engaging those who may get on board with licensing and regulation than those who will dismiss all poker related discussion on 'moral grounds' or some other BS. I know that the PPA is probably light years ahead of what I'm saying here, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to back them up with lots and lots and lots of individual voices pushing for a common cause.

How many times have we all put encouraged by this type of introduction and it gets dead...

In politics, you can't count on what a politician says any particular day. The only Congresscritters whom you can consider as definite votes for the bill are those that are signed on as sponsor or co-sponsor:
For all the rest, it is equally important that they hear support for the bill from their constituents.

I doubt Congress will pass any bill (UIGEA repeal, redefinition of "illegal internet gaming", etc.) which authorizes Internet gambling or Internet poker without also a licensing and regulation scheme. There is also a danger in getting such legislation introduced - the anti-gambling crowd might amend it along the way to make it the opposite of what we want. The only real shot we have is a bill to license and regulate.

what effect does Black Friday have on the chances of 'legalizing' poker?

will politicians want to support a bill that 'legalizes' an activity that was just involved in a big fraud and money laundering bust?

The problem is most will not commit and our issue is not even on there radar..Without a voting record it is unlikely to be able to determine one way or the other....Read some of response letters that have been posted(or hopefully you have recieved)...

There might be some of that, but I think that would be offset by the argument that the indictment underlines the need to license and regulate the industry.

OTOH, the indictment likely hurt our chances for federal legislation for a different reason. We lost one of our best arguments for legislation: "it's happening anyway, so we might as well license and tax it." Plus, the US casino corps (like Wynn) were coming over to the side of licensing legislation on the same basis. Now there probably isn't as great a sense of urgency to get in on the bandwagon as it's been demonstrated that prohibition can work.

Our contacts to our legislators can offset these negatives, but only if we keep it up on a large scale.