Of course. How could anybody conclude that the fight for openly legal online poker has gained any momentum whatsoever since 2006 and the UIGEA passage ....

Where do these people come from? They must have internet access since they are posting here, do they read nothing but celebrity gossip pages?

Skallagrim

My statement was that the PPA and Reid have not made meaningful movement. Individual states, specifically NV, NJ, DE, have made significant progress to establish a legal regulatory licensed on-shore structure w/o any help from the PPA or Reid.

I guess the Reid/Kyl letter to the DOJ has nothing to do with movement in those states?

They have not been effective mainly because of republicans.

Your generalization is just plain wrong.

Bono Mack tho...

Did you wear the juice when you made this post?

I believe that there is a better chance of passing a federal online poker bill now than at any time in the past.

As discussed elsewhere, a number of factors have coalesced to create a possible common ground for cobbling together enough votes to pass the Senate, especially if "netural", disinterested votes are garnered because of attachment to another bill. (This is why the lame duck session and attachment to another bill bring better chances of passage than any stand-alone bill would face in 2013.)

HOWEVER, the irony is that the Reid-Kyl Letter, which you might re-read, got exactly the opposite answer they apparently anticipated. The Reid Kyl Letter was inviting a ban on States' activity, read the nonsense about information packets crossing state lines even for intrastate gaming. The result, the Dec. Wire Act reversal, and its September predecessor for Lotteries, were prompted by the inquiries, but the December answer was hardly supportive of a "federal only" solution.

For federal purposes, the Letter may have ignited a fire under gambling opponents, enough for them to cut a poker deal to fix the online casino/unlicensed poker boogeyman created by DOJ. THAT perceived need to act NOW may help federally, enough to bring a compromise bill across the finish line in fact.

But, no, the States were moving ahead in any event, and will do so in 2013 if no federal bill reigns in or channels that development.

While your second sentence is correct, your first statement is simply wrong.

I have always maintained that State movement was more likely than federal, that State movement would come first, and State movement was a necessary pre-condition for passing any federal bill, even one simply blessing multi-state compacts.

However, it is wrong to say Reid has not made meaningful progress on federal legislation.

It is similarly wrong to think that Reid and the PPA are synonymous. The PPA holds, influences and sways no votes in the Senate. Reid does. The LV Sun article on the various interests at play omitted the players as stakeholders because while they may advise, consult, or lobby, they do not really hold sway over any particular votes.

Other folks do matter more than player lobbyists to the passage of legislation. The best the players can hope for is to counsel those others that a player-friendly product will maximize revenues from online poker versus a poor product that also gouges players with excessive fees for service and discourages public acceptance of poker as entertainment.

I heartily disagree. The Reid/Kyl letter got exactly the answer that they did want. It forced the DOJ to make a reasoned legal opinion on the Wire Act, which had to conclude that the Wire Act applied only to sports betting. This gave Reid/Kyl the perfect political justification for their bill - stop the proliferation of Internet gambling legislation in the U.S. If the DOJ had instead made some political statement that the long-held stance of the DOJ that all Internet gambling in the US is illegal, there would be little reason to bring a UIGEA-II bill to a vote (with or without a poker carveout).

I have to a agree with DQ, as I. Nelson Rose put it: http://www.gamblingandthelaw.com/blo...y-18-2011.html

It strains credulity to assume that Reid/Kyl were actually hoping that Eric Holder would give States the green light to let the genie out of the bottle before they were able to get the first two wishes.
http://www.gamblingandthelaw.com/ima...-to-holder.pdf

And if that isn't enough clue as to the response they hoped for, they also asked that the Attorney General - just in case his response might have been something other than what they desired - withhold his response until consulting with congress.

Since the floodgates are open, it's only fair to say that they weren't granted either of their wishes.

PPA has been incredibly effective, especially given the strength of the opposition. Also, PPA is not a "they". It's our shared effort to advocate for our rights. If you feel we can be more effective, please share what you're doing to make that happen.

lool @ anyone saying the PPA hasnt been effective. The PPA is responsible for the rally of players that have been reaching out to Congressmen for a long time now. To say that our voice hasnt been heard is just ignorant.

People seem to forget that the PPA did play a role along with PokerStars in getting AB 258 (Nevada intrastate poker) passed, and it was within days of Nevada announcing the regulations for intrastate poker that the DOJ (coincidentally?) 'opened the floodgate' for any State to move forward.

It was that OLC opinion that prompted in the change in the conversation, which I believe can all be traced back to the PPA/PokerStars effort to push Nevada on the idea of becoming the 'gold standard' in internet gaming regulation.

Everything happening right now at the State level is in direct response to the 'threat' of Reid/Kyl legislation in the lameduck, States wants to get grandfathered in before Congress can do anything, so it would be inaccurate to say that the PPA has had no influence over State movement, since State movement has been in response to the legislation the PPA supports.

No one that has watched the Senate hearings evolve from 'internet poker is a threat to Tribal economies' to 'how can we make sure the Tribes get a competitive edge in online gambling' can honestly believe that the PPA has had no impact.

The situation may not have evolved exactly as it was game planned - Federal movement pushing State rather than vice versa - and they may set expectations too high, but with poker players if you promise the moon they are just going ask about rakeback, so the expectation level needs to be high in order to get any support at all.

There is nothing in the Nevada Regulations which would prohibit a licensed site from offering rakeback to online poker players. It would be a logical extention of the loyalty programs and comps offered live gaming customers.

I have discussed similar issues with the PPA, who has been receptive to the idea of approaching the Commission on player-important regulatory issues like that, as needed.

I wasn't actually suggesting rakeback was prohibited, I just threw that out as an example of the things glass half full players focus on, as if just getting legal poker wouldn't be a monumental accomplishment.

I could have said 'OMG, TAXES?!?' or 'no international player pool?!?' or a dozen other examples.

This one is bleak.

Online poker's window of opportunity may be closing

saw you post itt and rushed in... disapointing to say the least

"It ultimately requires a legislative action in a Congress that hasn't had many in this session," Loveman said. "We will continue to pursue it. At the same time, we are much more active now on the state-by-state process than we have been historically.''

PuhLEEEZE, ... Caesars historically has been very active in opposing State legislation. The company has more more blood on its hands than Lady MacBeth, from knifing the New Jersey-passed bill when it hit Governor Christies desk.

Inactivity has not been the problem. Rather it was the "kill anything that is not our Federal Final Solution" shortsighted market grab that was holding back progress.

Ironically, Caesars has still a great lead on building any State-compacted metwork or brand. I has the strongest B&M brand in the most markets and the strongest B&M poker brand in the WSOP, PLUS it has a great database and marketing focus already.

That said, I smell a check-raise, don't count the lame duck out just yet.

Caesars + optimism = nothing passing on the federal level.

Caesars + pessimism = ?????

Can you elaborate a bit on your shorthand ?

Optimism or pessimism on this forum have no real correlation with reality with respect to whether or not something actually will pass federally this year. Posters here really do NOT know, myself included.

The only chance for something to pass requires logrolling with purported opposition, to support something else they want in return for their dropping opposition or even supporting a bill which strengthened federal laws against unlicensed gaming and secured States Rights to regulate or prohibit online gaming.

Once the passage depneds upon some unrelated logrolling, analysis of the bills presented or the gaming industry lose relevance. What matters is how well gaming supporters can trade horses.

Fortunately, Reid is good at trading and at counting votes. I think Mitch McConnell complained Reid was acting like LBJ. So, I would not count out an igaming bill, LBJ could have passed an igaming bill in the 1950s- 60s, if the internets had been invented and someone was willing to foot the bill.

my read is that he's so sick of being wrong every time he's tried to "call it", he's now trying the old "reverse jinx".

I attempted similar gambits quite often when involved in all-in situations in nlhe tournaments, and the poker gods were thoroughly tricked. so I know from experience that this kinda **** works.

at the time (years ago, now), a pokerstars blogger referred to my actions as "odd". well frankly I think updating an online log as if you're a sports journalist and covering a faux sport that takes place almost entirely in the imaginations of a few people is a bit ODD too. and I certainly don't see anything odd about dr loveman's play here at all.

Yes it's bleak, but to paraphrase the famous line from Gordon Gecko in 'Wall Street': "Bleak is good".

As the great philosopher Mick Jagger opines, "You can't always get what you want, but you get what you need."

Nevada is now awoke to the reality that online gaming isn't just an opportunity for them to capitalize on, as the article concludes, "We need to fix this," he added. "Doing nothing was an option before December 2011. Now, doing nothing is not an option."

So this article is bleak in the same sense that the articles which ran in the NY Times in 1930 saying that if the federal government didn't step in and regulate gambling (the stock market), then the NY economy was doomed.

Doomed is good, bleak is good, and now Nevada is saying in this article: "You think we just went through a bad economy over the last three years? That could be nothing compared to effect of full-blown Internet gaming on a state-by-state basis. That's why we're so focused on some kind of federal structure that would set ground rules. What we advocate is poker only."

Most people forget this, but in 1929 when "the stock market" crashed, almost every major city in America had a stock exchange, Chicago, Philadelphia, LA, etc., and it wasn't until things became bleak that the Federal government found it both necessary and proper to step in and centralize that (gambling) industry.

Of course it didn't hurt that Roosevelt packed the Supreme Court, but the point is that we need bleak, bleak is a good thing, bleak makes things happen in Washington.

Three cheers for bleak!

So, if not this legislative session we are looking at 2 to 4 years before it has a chance of being considered. Especially with Kyle leaving.

Is the PPA going to shift to states now?

Meh, nothing to get discouraged about. Weve always been big underdogs this Congress, Im happy with the 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 or w/e shot, ten times better then I'd ever have hoped in January 2011.

The big problem is that states are not moving forward with casino gambling, just poker. So there is no motivation for Republicans to take the deal with the poker carve out. Instead they will just plan on making everything illegal at the federal level? This congress has passed the least amount of bills in 60 years. I hope I am wrong.