PPA put out five talking points. So, we can each write five letters plus ones on our personal opinions. Or, we can write one letter with all five points. Or, we can take points from this forum. It seems there are plenty of sources for input for reg comments.

Beyond that, if someone were to break down the regs as you suggested, I imagine that would get traction here and elsewhere.

Does anyone know:
a) Can this be saved to my hard drive? I'm not seeing a way.
b) Will it be archived on the site for a long time?

Thanks.

I'm most of the way through the video now - Weiler completely owned. If I have to make one argument to an opponent or average ignorant joe, I show them his testimony.

It was a very good hearing for us. Ms. Duke was excellent and so was Prof. Weiler.
I was very dismayed by Ms. Hanaway's testimony. She stated that the DOJ has prosecuted some cases involving online horse racing. She gave the BetOnSports case as an example. I have read the original complaint and petition in that case. It alleges operating an online casino in addition to online sports betting, but does not allege horse racing. I do not remember even a reference to the Interstate Horseracing Act. I have read the Defendants' motion to dismiss the petition. It does not mention horseracing or the Interstate Horseracing Act. In addition, Ms. Hanaway stated that the Eastern District has a view that the Wire Act applies to all online gambling. However, she admitted that the court has not ruled on the Defendants' motion to dismiss which includes a motion to dismiss the allegation of operating an online casino because, under the In Re Mastercard case, the Wire Act does not cover online casinos. I do not remember where, but I read an article about the federal magistrate in this case recommending to the court that it ignore In Re Mastercard because it is wrong. But this is not a ruling of the court. I feel that Ms. Hanaway deliberately misrepresented the known law on online gambling. She gave the impression that the Travel Act and the Interstate Gambling Act make all online gambling an illegal enterprise. However, both statutes require that one engage in illegal gambling under some other federal or state statute to violate either of them. Ms. Hanaway did not mention the In Re Mastercard case until Ms. Duke reminded her about it. Ms. Hanaway then stated that it did not count because the DOJ was not a party to the case. IMO if Ms. Hanaway had made these statements in a court of law, the court may have felt mislead and might have been perturbed. I expected more candor from a public servant even though the committee hearing is not a court of law.
Fortunately, she probably hurt the FOF cause much more than she helped.

The PPA would welcome 2+2s thoughts on follow-up questions to specific panelist. These questions can be submitted by members of the Committtee and we already have some tee'd up who are willing to do so. One area we did not drill down deep enuff on in the hearing was the proposed regulations. Specifically, I would have liked a line of questions that forced the Treasury witness to respond to why they do not define "unlawful internet gambling" in the proposed regulations and why they felt that U.S. financial institutions (ie private industry) was in a better position to do so.

Further, I would like to see DoJ/Treasury follow Rep. Goodlatte's logic on states rights. It would seem to me that a federal bill and corresponding regulations (the UIGEA) which seeks to block "unlawful internet gambling" transaction unilaterally without consideration to whether a state has said an acitivty is unlawful does not protect states rights, but rather unsurps them.

Please know that we have a top notch crew in Washington working on your behalf. This hearing will not be the last movement on this issue before Congress leaves for the year.

Seperately, Annie and I met with a member of Congress after the hearing (he was not a member of the Committee) but important nontheless. He told us that after Iraq and Immigration, Internet poker was the issue his office had recieved the most mail/email/calls about. He will also be signing on as a cosponsor to Wexler/Frank/Berkeley this week. I only share this cause I believe it demostrates the power of individual contact with members of Congress. Let work together to build more sucess!

John A. Pappas
PPA, Executive Director

in his closing remarks, Goodlatte mentions some nations have settled (though the EU and Antigua have not); who are the nations which have settled with the U.S.?

Thanks for sharing. That is great news and surprising (in a good way) that our issue was #3 on the "most volume list". Glad we are squarely on the radar.

John, the early returns for the new PPA management teams are very good, keep it up.

Are we to assume that a poker-only internet site would enjoy freedom from prosecution from the DOJ - if they set up business, here, on US soil?

I too applaud all the efforts made by the PPA. Lets keep the momentum.

Shouldn't the primary goal be getting poker exempt from UIGEA, with other 'tax & regulate bills' as ancilliary. Im not sure how this has to be played, but poker exemption is my primary concern.

The primary goal is simply expressly legal poker. The best bill to do this right now is the Wexler "Skill Games Protection Act" (HR 2610). It exempts poker and other named games of skill from ALL internet gambling laws, does not create any new federal tax or regulatory scheme (other than to require the sites to have age verification, and similar protective measures). It is by itself WTO compliant (it doesnt make the US compliant with the WTO, but it certainly does not take the US any further out of compliance). And it is gaining sponsors and momentum. It does not require us to justify online slots (the alleged "crack" of gambling) and it does not require us to convince the sports leagues to allow betting on their games.

It is the best bill for us, and it is the one we need to keep pushing.

Skallagrim

I would argue that it does take the US further out of compliance, if there is such a thing. The truth is you are in compliance or you are not. It's like being a little bit pregnant.

However, if the US's two options to be in compliance is eliminate all remote gambling, or open the US market to all remote gambling from Antigua, adding one more form of state sanctioned remote gambling to the US market does in a way take them further out of compliance.

Thanks Skall.
Jay, I don't think it's so black and white. Since such a strong portion of online gambling is poker, the WTO might be more agreable to our new "interpretation" of gambline commitments.

Skall,

I tend to agree with Jay that as much as I and working for and hope to gain full legality for on-line poker, I don't see the overall value to the US in further adding to the "hodgepodge" of laws in the US with another exemption alone.

Given the size of the horseracing industry and the actual amount of it served by Antigua, unless the US were to propose say a skill games exemption with liscencing of US and off shore operators, as a compromise to resolve the issue, the action alone actually makes the WTO issue worse for the USTR.


D$D

Actually it is.

The original panel, appellate body, and compliance panel were pretty clear. Remote gambling is remote gambling. They didn't buy into the artificial distinctions the US makes about different types.

I'll tell you something else. The latest panel that is decissing the sanctions had the attitude, although this is not what they are deciding, that gambling is gambling. IF the tide keeps going that way, and the US found themselves in another case, they would be faced with eliminate ALL gambling, remote or land based, or allow foreign access.

The Wexler bill would certainly allow Antigua based sites to offer skill games to US customers. Thus I fail to see how it increases our non-compliance. But, of course it does not do anything by itself to get us into compliance.

And although I know you dont like me posting this idea (and, admittedly, it is just an idea) IF the US were to open up an online skill games market to all competitors and simultaneously outlaw all foreign and domestic remote "gambling." That would at least create a whole new WTO issue going forward, wouldn't it? (The Wexler bill does not do this, and I am not advocating for it, but I present it as a way to save poker if the Congress, in response to the WTO, decides banning all remote gambling is preferable to allowing all remote gambling).

Skallagrim

If the US allows online chess tournaments, does that mean it must, according to the WTO, also allow online slots?

Jay, you know I respect you, your efforts and your opinion, but the WTO has never issued an opinion distinguishing gambling from other forms of games. Nor has it said if you have any online games for money you must have all online games AND gambling for money. How they would respond to this is an open question. Does not mean I am right, just means its an argument the US could put forth as to future laws.

And D$D, the Wexler bill does not require US licensing, thats the Frank bill - under Wexler FTP and Stars become legal upon passage (provided they also meet the safety requirements). So there is no discrimination against foreign companies, so no WTO violation.

Skallagrim

Yes it would create a new issue.

But if as Jay says the WTO already sees little distinction between live and remote fo the moral arguement, and any partial access to live forms from remote like horseracing prove violation of trade laws then adding other forms of remote access through regualtion is just saying we now allow US companies to participte in competition.

From a few articles I've found, poker seems to generate more profit than sports books, which I thought was the reverse and have no "source" I completely trust, so there is IMO potential value to a compromise as the Wire Act existance pre-GATT and the State's rights could then be better expressed.

I do not know of a specific case but the EU might be vunerable to this States rights issue, as there must be some trade issues that involve some countries "opting out" from EU agreements.

Right or wrong the Bush Administration is "paying" in this action for a lot more than "remote gaming". In general the WTO needs the US more than the WTO needs a "pissed off" US. But the world loves to piss off this Administration as it feels it has good reason to do so.

The numbers thrown around attempt to make this a "big" issue in terms of trade. That is the way it is in legal civil actions here in the US, but the WTO is not a US civil court and it's ability to even try to act like one is fairly new and almost completely untested.


D$D

I would like to see the Wexler bill pass. However, I wonder if it would help us transfer money between online poker sites and our bank accounts. Currently, we have one ewallet Epassporte open to the US and it serves a minority of poker sites open to US.
So if online poker is exempted from UIGEA and the Wire Act, would online gambling sites separate their poker sites from the rest of their gambling services so that Epassporte would service them. How many ewallets would service only online poker sites? I fear that to get back a Neteller type company that serves all online poker sites, we need legalization of all online gambling.
Also, Skall, I think that Jay is right about the WTO stance on gambling. I do not think that the WTO will accept separation of poker from gambling. I suspect that they would include betting on backgammon, bridge and chess, which the DOJ strangely (given Ms. Hanaway's testimony) does not prosecute, as gambling under the WTO.

Without any hoops to jump through I think the poker sites could set up very effective money transfer (ACH) mechanisms on their own. Also, though it would pain me to use them, Paypal would probably reenter the e-wallet market for poker sites. Actually from the perspective of getting more players that would be damn sweet!

Wexler bill wont satisfy the WTO, but would make payments easy. I would say players would deposit with mastercard/visa like they do for other 'skill' game currently.

Depositing would be easy, but what about withdrawal? What about transferring money from one site to another?
Would Pay-Pal reenter the business if they could not serve most online poker sites because they did not separate their customers' poker accounts from their other accounts?
I know that we want to be separate from sports betting. In a court of law, we must be separate because we have much better legal arguments than any other form of online gambling. However, I am not so sure in the political arena. IMO if the WTO grants Antiqua its requested relief from US IP laws, then we should push for legalization of all online gambling to conform to the WTO decision.

I don't think we'd need e-wallets with Wexler's bill, as poker would be explicitly legal. Seems we'd just move money into and out of poker-only sites just via standard methods (echecks, credit cards, etc).

As for the WTO, I guess we don't know what they'd do if the U.S. presented a plan that doesn't discriminate between foreign and domestic suppliers and claimed it settled the dispute. After all, the current U.S. strategy has been to tell the WTO that "we're doing what we're doing and screw off if you don't like it". I tend to agree with you and Jay here, but there is a potential that they could accept different non-discriminary options. This would have been more likely three or four years ago. The judgments against the U.S. since then have reduced this likelihood, of course.

I hope it all opens up via WTO pressure, of course. That would be ideal.

I just got to the FOF guy talking about the UK prevalence survey. He was alleging that fixed odds terminals and computer based gambling had higher problem gambling rates and talked of an "increasing" problem. This is a real abuse of the research in an area that is important to the debate.

His claim is that online makes more problem gamblers. This would be a powerful argument so it is important to be able to refute it - fortunately the research he quoted did not show what he claimed at all! In fact it showed that between 1999 and 2007 FOBTs, spread betting and Internet gambling became much more widely available and much more widely used but the number of problem gamblers remained the same.

He abused the research by cherry picking a couple of bits of data that showed that a higher proportion of those involved in spread betting, FOBTs and Internet gambling have a problem - what he failed to mention was that these have relatively low participation rates. Problem gamblers are a bit like early adopters in other industries, they seek out the new opportunities of the new technology and so make up a higher proportion in these areas solely because they are used by relatively few. Problem gamblers bet on anything and everything - the new technology DOES NOT increase their number or make new addicts. That is what the research showed instead he makes up an increased threat via the Internet and mumbles of crack cocaine.

Now I don't know much about FoFs inteligence or morals but as the research headlined with the number of problem gamblers in the UK and highlighted the no change since 1999 I doubt this mistake was due to a lack of intelligence, it does after all only require the ability to read so I must assume that the FoF rep deliberately lied and that somehow this is acceptable in his moral framework.

Seriously it is important to know that internet gambling may be used by problem gamblers, even loved by problem gamblers but it does not make more problem gamblers (even if it has compromised the morals of at least one FoF spokesman-liar).

I hate to suggest it but we're stuck with some form of 5% to deposit.

In the end it is easy money the on-line poker market has show it is willing to pay. I don't know how well the other on-line skill games would accept it but any bank and the gov't under this outline would have to be pretty uniform.

I'd forsee ATM type fees for banks, little or no credit cards, and the rest going to a stealth tax to oversee on-line gaming and ship a few bucks to the people really willing to treat problem gamblers as more than a political tool.


D$D

Well the Foe of Fun guy really showed himself to prefer arguing his cause more than any regard for anything else.

You are absolutely correct that we need to show unemotionally and sciencetifically exactly how he is willing to distort the facts.

This is also true in the legal claims made by Catherine, as she has a bad habit of "over playing her hand". She has done this politically through out her life. She lost her newly won Speaker position by attempting to "take over" MO politics by trying to move everone up a notch way too soon. She lost he bid to become Sec of State by over reaching IMO.

John has indicated that there is an agreement to have questions submitted to the pannelists for the record. We have members willing to submit them if we do the work.

I am not equiped to take on Catherine in her current position but might be able to help shape the way the questions are asked of her from my knowledge of her, but I do not posses the legal background.

I am willing to help in the presure on Valerie Abend, on the propose regulation questions as needed.


D$D