Legal US Internet Poker a Distant Mirage?
April 7, 2008
This month marks the one year anniversary of Rep. Barney Frank's Internet Gaming Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007. This time last year I was paying homage to this campaign for removal of the Port Security Bill's ban of Americans' rights to play poker in the world's great Internet poker rooms. Now, a year later, I realize the deck is stacked heavily against us. When a professional politician as powerful as Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, doesn't have the horsepower to nudge his Internet poker relief bill out of the starting blocks what's our chance of success? How long are the odds for any of us ordinary poker players doing anything - solo, collectively or otherwise - to return this freedom to the US poker players? Slim to none.
How come a collection of rich, powerful, and well connected professional politicians can't undo, given a whole year, what just one of their unscrupulous brethren accomplished in minutes? If it was so easy for then Senate Majority Leader Frist to attach his Internet poker torpedo to the Port Security Bill; then what's preventing the equally powerful Frist successor from returning this missing freedom using the same proven technique of eleventh hour must-pass bill riders? Two Words...Harry Reid (D-NV). Nuff said?
A whole year has passed and there's not even been an agreement to start a "year long study" of Internet poker before proceeding to pass any legislation overturning the Frist Internet poker death warrant. Next April will I be posting the same old Internet Poker story of "no demonstrated progress" for the second straight year? The smart money is saying I will do exactly that.
Flipchip has posted a gallery of Las Vegas HDR photos on the Las Vegas News Blog.
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