Reading this story makes a couple things “obvious” to me:

1. The US.gov is serious about the illegality of sports wagering online, as it really is the only thing clear in previous legislation.

2. Online poker sites that accept US players are having a hard time getting new players, because the American market is tapped out, and if you were a newly addicted European, why would you choose any site that runs into potential trouble from US.gov when you can play on super-legit home-continenters such as PartyPoker, Ladbrokes, 888, etc.? The exception to this, of course, are PokerStars (because they’re so damn big and have all the champions) and Full Tilt (because they have all the pros).

3. Pete Sessions’ HR 6663 really is a sensible piece of legislation in that it makes everything clear (even though it may not cow-tow to a few special-special interests): it spells out more clearly than anything else — sports betting on the internet is bad, online poker is fine, and other games need to be decided.

Jackson is one of four cosponsor’s to Rep. Pete Sessions’ (R-TX) HR 6663. That bill, of course, is the most straightforward fix to the UIGEA — simply limiting its reach to online sports gambling — yet one of the more controversial because of, um, politics.

Perhaps shockingly, he didn’t mention anything about the critical importance of being able to easily compete in online WSOP satellites in his five minutes he had to address the world … but hey, that’s where we stand: We have a young, pre-introductory Day 1 speaker to the Democratic party (his debut performance on such a stage) aware of our issues and philosophically on our side, though not exactly the way the PPA would like him to be.

Speech transcript / Video