That wish would backfire. Republicans would make the argument they made in 2010, that the LD Congress does not reflect the will of the people, and any big legislation should wait till the new Congress convenes. Republicans have enough members in Congress now to, easily, make that argument, reality.

I think we may find that we have both sides of the action, as a federal ban bill with any hope of passage would, IMO, have to include a carve out of some sort for poker.

Im starting to see significant progress Im slowly changing from pessimisstic to optimistic. Its starting to feel if isnt the question anymore. Its a matter of when? Sadly the road will truly be closed for states like Utah though.

I'm at my most optimistic right now and I believe I will stay that way through 2012. I'm not only optimistic that online poker will be 100% back in the U.S. at some point, I'm also getting more confident that I will be able to continue playing on Merge and other sites until laws are passed. I think the DOJ has their hands full with FTP/PS/UB and may not have enough on the other sites to go after them. America's Card Room has ads on ESPN. There will always be someone with the balls to offer us online poker. I'm not saying I'm happy with the status quo. I think that as long as poker sites are willing to pop up and offer us games, the government will eventually be forced to act.

havent played online since april 15th. Wont trust a site until something is done.

I didn't say I trust them. I keep an amount of money that I don't mind losing in my account.

Not sure where my question would fit, so I'll just post it here. I'm mostly grunching, but could someone clarify where does iPoker fit with the Keystone pipeline? As I understand, ppl were trying to fund/pay for the project by iPoker revenue etc. Is this ~right?

Paying for the payroll tax holiday with poker. Of course, that never had a shot in hell as poker revenue is a great unknown.

Well, what I was getting at was I would be absolutely against supporting iPoker taking the Keystone path, since it would basically be a crime: http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/...011-in-photos/

Only people suggesting a connection between Keystone and i-poker were unrealistic i-poker dreamers. Democrats are not gonna concede the pipeline just to get i-poker. The priorities do not even come close to matching.

the tax cut package keystone was attached to happened to cost ~$40b/10yrs, and that happened to be the amount of tax revenue the CBO estimated regulating igaming would bring.

we saw something about to be passed and they're all, 'woah 40 billion dollars, how are we gonna pay for this?'

and we've been all 'please support federally regulated online #poker in the US! CBO estimates $40b tax rev!'

and we thought well why not.

I guess, in this case, I was trying to point to the importance of iPoker getting through via something ethically legit. Or rather NOT through something like Keystone.

It wasn't going to be attached to keystone...keystone itself was an attachment to the payroll tax cut. The attachment just gives a 2 month window for Obama to say yes or no to pipeline in election year. It was originally supposed to be decided in 2013.

I would also imagine most people don't view keystone as unethical, but that's more of a discussion for the Politics forum

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

*Still a bit confusing, though.

We probably don't want any federal legislation that Kyl likes enough to support. He will make sure it makes poker illegal so the feds can completely shut down all the offshore poker sites still accepting U.S. players. And any poker bill supported by Reid will protect the land-based casinos from any competition from offshore poker sites.

But it will probably allow many offshore sites to be service providers for the US licensed sites, just like in the NV legislation and regulations.

GamblingCompliance spoke with Harry Reid.

I won't quote here since GC is subscription based but Reid basically confirmed that he is working on federal ipoker legislation with Jon Kyl. He said "We're making progress" and when asked if they would attach to the payroll tax cuts next month he said "I'm not going to get into how we're going to get it done."

Will you or anyone who has an subscription pull the exact quote about the Reid/Kyl bill?

This is the first real confirmation we've gotten directly from Reid or his office that this is happening with Kyl on board, right? Pretty awesome, and a big deal imo.

Yep. Although it was previously stated by former NV rep Jon Porter in November.

lol, that vid is perfect

There's not much more to the article than what slugger wrote. It sounds like GC just talked to Reid for a couple minutes after his appearance on Meet the Press. But here are some quotes.

Right. Timeline so far (please help me with accurate dates):

Dec. 2010: Reid tries to make deal with Kyl for poker bill attachment, floating several drafts, but effort fails to reach fruition.

Jan 2011 (best guess): Kyl changes stance on his web site from opposed to will consider it.

Mar 2011: AGA changes stance to support online gaming legislation.

Jul 2011: Ceasars & MGM fund FairplayUSA, an astroturf to push a compromise UIGEA-Strengthening/i-Poker Licensing federal bill.

Jul 2011: Reid and Kyl send joint letter to DOJ asking for clarification of DOJ stance on online gambling

Oct/Nov 2011: The House holds two hearings on Internet Gambling legislation and the Senate holds one.

Dec 2011: DOJ releases an opinion letter and a response to the Reid/Kyl letter, reversing their long-standing stance that all online gambling is illegal in the US under the Wire Act.

Jan 16, 2012: Reid confirms that he is negotiating with Kyl for federal i-gaming legislation.

Pretty affirmative rhetoric, imo.