For those of you who think we can do better but are withholding support, you are actually reducing the chances that we get a better bill. The more support we give, the more influence the lobbyists can have on the final outcome. If you want a better bill, the answer is MORE support, not less.

FYP

If by "your lobbying organization" you mean the PPA. it is already aware of your concerns and is acting on them.

The PPA has already been assured that there are no player criminal penalties in the proposed bill. The PPA is relatively confident that the tax proposed is a reasonable tax on rake, not deposits - though we still seek specific assurance of this point. The PPA is working to improve other aspects too, such as a shortened blackout period.

One thing the PPA has pretty much given up on changing is the "opt-in"/"opt-out" method of individual state paticipation- too many politicians who would otherwise support us feel so strongly about "state's rights" that "opt-out" is a line in the sand for them (meaning they would oppose the bill if it is an "opt-out" bill).

I would appreciate if folks would state their preferences at this point assuming the 2 points where the PPA feels confident are part of the final bill: no player penalties* and the tax being on rake alone.

If that is the case, do you support this federal legislation as the best way to move forward quickest, or do you advocate rejecting the legislation?

Skallagrim

* except to the extent that one considers potentially losing money sent to, held by, or on its way from an unlicensed site a "player penalty."

I'm just not following some of the posts here about the status quo being something worth maintaining. The status quo to me : 100% worthless. 100%. There will never be any recreational players until they can deposit like we could back in the glory days of Neteller / Partypoker.

A bill that forever bans all other casino games is the ABSOLUTE NUTS. It keeps all the online gambling money in the poker community.

Some people here need to get a grip and realize this may be the greatest thing since sliced bread overtime.

I will probably pack my bags and move into one of the first opt-in states just to get a piece of this windfall - and I'm not even that great of a poker player.

15 month blackout is easy peasy. regulations will take that long or longer, I would expect. just look at Nevada: a state with 1/100th of the nation's population, which already has EXTENSIVE experience regulating gaming, passed ipoker legislation around Black Friday and there aren't licensed sites accepting wagers yet. have they been living under a soul-crushing 20-month blackout period? it wouldn't really have mattered, would it?

I'm emphatically in support of the current bill.

Agreed on the opt-in/opt-out part of the bill. Forcing a opt-in unless opt-out is nothing but a unilateral wet dream, not to mention likely unconstitutional.

Most moderate / liberal states will opt-in pretty quickly b/c it's free revenue. I am guessing that's probably half the country. Some more conservative states will take longer. There will be states like Utah that will probably never optin. Those are the facts of life. But half the country is 150MM people I'd say that's a good beat.

I support the current bill

There are bad bills. Trust me. I am perhaps too hard on people who are skeptical. No one (and i mean no one) has seen this bill text so it's hard to evaluate it fully. They simply will not show it to people until the last second.

I would support the federal legislation.

I hope you are also addressing the issue of the age and location verification requirements. "GPS technology" and "biometrics" as mentioned in the bill summary are much more intrusive on personal privacy than "geo-location" and traditional "identity verification".

I think you should verify that any biometric identifiers called for are limited to behavioral biometrics, not physiological biometrics (which would require hardware solutions to verify identity such as thumbprint or voice recognition). And you should verify that "GPS" is simply another misnomer by the person who wrote the summary, i.e., that it is actually IP geo-location technology called for in the bill.

As regards the opt out/opt in, since the bill must be opt in, can you at least push for a requirement that state legislatures take a vote during the blackout period rather than leaving it that no action equals opt out?

And one more provision to push for: Require that any state which opts in has to allow poker players to deduct losses on their state income tax calculations in the same manner that they are deductible for federal income taxes.

This is exactly what the right wing thinking is. Bingo.

The more politicized this gets the harder it becomes to just drop it into a moving vehicle. That's why Reid's ranting is not helpful.

I support the federal legislation.

Yeah, but Nevada has already much of the legwork. That 20 months also counts the time waiting on clarification from the DOJ. It's really only been 10 months. I would really like to see this limited to 6 months.

I'm with PX on these two as well.

I'm with you on that, but you can't take away their ammo.

+1
As IL will likely be an early opt in state. Currently deductions are not allowed unless you file as a pro.

and get the BO period shorter.

I support the Reid/Kyl bill given these two provisos.

One thing I would like to see that hasn't been mentioned much is criminal penalties for cheaters. So players found using bots, trojans to see opponents' hole cards, etc. would be subject to criminal penalties. Or at least a "black list" should be created so such players are banned from all licensed sites.

As Skall said, PPA is already lobbying to maximize player-friendly provisions. Withholding support won't help PPA work harder or more effectively (though many seem to operate on that belief).

That's actually not true. PPA is a players' organization that receives donations from groups that benefit from our activities. In this respect, PPA is operating on the same principle as NRA and other similarly structured groups. Also, it's not like PPA is declining player donations. Anyone who wants to help pay the bills is certainly encouraged to ship some cash.

Rich,

I am not withholding support. I am letting you know what I see that I do not like based on the summary. How anyone is interpreting that to mean that I want the status quo to last forever is beyond me.

All I have said is that it is quite possible to end up with a bill that is worse than the status quo, or worse than what we can get by going the state route if we are not careful.

Actually it is quite true.

The NRA raised over $100M in 2010 from membership dues and only $57M from industry grants, they also reinvested almost that much on membership and fund raising drives:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...t-s-spent.html

Compare that to the PPA who raised $50k from member dues in 2010 and $5.2M from industry contributions, while spending nothing on grassroots fundraising or drives to increase membership.
http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_...01012_990O.pdf

The NRA derives twice as much of it's funding from it's members than from outside organizations, the PPA receives over one hundred times more funding from organizations than does from members, so if the goal was to structure the PPA to operate similarly to the NRA, the result was an epic failure.

TA,

My point was that it's up to the community to choose to donate or not. I think we should all donate more, but PPA cannot force it.

I'm not too worried about the blackout. Nevada will be online by then and will most likely be the regulators as well, not to mention I'm screwed either way. If we want to reduce to blackout, then we need to either push for a bill as close to the Nevada system as possible or a provision that says state poker sites can offer while regulations are worked out at he federal level.

Most of what I'd like to see has been mentioned:
1. Clear criminal penalties at both state and federal levels for cheating, botting, etc. Extreme penalties for sites ripping off players.
2. Black list for 1
3. Allow non pros in bad states to net their wins and loses.(I'm in a bad state)
4. No ridiculous hoops to jump through to sign up.
5. Allow all deposit methods and every kind of affiliate possible.
6. Definitely no hardware to show the location of players.
7. Clear process for settling a problem with either another player or a poker site.
8. There should be an information page on each individual site provided by the regulator. Any infractions, settlements, or general wrong doings should be publicly available.
9. Require a supermajority and a free standing bill to raise the tax rate.

Excellent list! A couple comments:

I like your idea for reducing the blackout period. A version of that may be acceptable to the bill writers. Maybe allow intrastate-only sites to go live after the six-month period for development of regulations, where 1) the state has opted in, and 2) the site is granted a license by one of the approved qualified bodies.

Criminal penalties for cheaters, etc. are fine. However, previously such a provision stated that a violation of a site's T&C would determine what is criminal. I don't think that's a good idea. The bill itself should spell out what the criminal acts would be, subject to enforcement under the regulations.

I just don't see any reasonable way to shave significant time off the blackout period when the legislation calls for creation of an entirely new federal agency which would then need to write regulations and then approve qualified bodies which then need to approve sites. I mean honestly 15 months seems really optimistic.

Yes, I know you've been a strong supporter. Thanks. I was certainly not suggesting otherwise.

I posted ITT earlier that PPA is certainly able to withhold support or even oppose the bill outright if it does not meet the needs and desires of the membership. That being said, the clarification of player penalties certainly lessens the likelihood of that.

PPA's lobbyists will continue representing the community in pushing for the provisions we need in this bill.

Protecting Casinos & Robbing States of Revenue Most Important Issue for Harry Reid