The PPA was in Massachusetts this week, testifying before a joint committee on behalf of H4069, which would classify poker as a game of skill — apparently important as that state considers a variety of casino-related legislation.

Go Massachusetts Skillaments, but elsewhere, far more is at stake for states that could care less about the nuances of what is and is not technically gambling amongst avowed gamblers. Thus, PPA Executive Director John Pappas has been crisscrossing the country addressing states considering intrastate online poker, trying to persuade them not to muddy the online semi-gambling waters with legislation that comes to the table inherently flawed, legally and from a competitive market standpoint.

Pappas was in Florida last week, addressing a Senate committee on regulated industries. Florida, as we know, has been working on more and more legal poker for the past five or six years with much success, so why not extend that to the internet? Well, Pappas explains, because problems needing fixin’ at the federal level first. Without it, anything any one state creates, he says, automatically will exist in a a legal gray area that could be challenged in a variety of federal ways. And because of this gray area, and the way poker works, regulated “state monopoly” sites will struggle to compete against the unregulated likes of Full Tilt and PokerStars. (He doesn’t mention those sites by name, but players know that’s who he’s talking about.)

It’s an important argument to begin honing, because right now we have California and Florida moving aggressively in the intrastate direction — supposedly with Iowa and Wyoming about to jump on the bandwagon. Legislation can be a rather cut-and-paste enterprise these days, so if those four states go, then it’s only a matter of time before some 40+ others follow suit, which could undermine, or at least complicate, years of work on by poker’s favorite grassroots advocacy group.

Have a listen. In addition to bringing the California arguments to Florida, for the first time we hear the PPA start to lay out some of the details on how internet poker taxation would work under either the Frank or Menendez bills — with provisions included for individual states to receive their revenue share from the federal regulatory system. We also learn of a new organization — the Poker Voters of America — that has effectively brought the idea of intrastate online poker to the Florida legislature. On its surface, the PVA doesn’t look too different from the PPA. But strategically, they’re fighting the UIGEA in a much different way. Well-meaning but misguided is the gist; can we have your donor list?

More…

Some pokery political types are in London right now for the International Gaming Expo. Figure out for yourself why there might be foreign interest in the likes of the Poker Players Alliance, right as this bill gets ready to go into “mark-up”. Our pal J. Todd is there and he tracks down PPA Exec. Dir. John Pappas to talk about the 2010 Barney Frank bill, what’s the strategy behind it, and what makes it different from previous online poker legislation.

It’s apparently all gonna be twitter-based this go-round — www.tweetforpoker.com.

Good interview helping mak sense of it all:

That’s what we wanna know … do you think this UIGEA enforcement deadline is gonna pass with out much ado? Efforts to delay this by a year seems to be the current push … though that’s essentially running it through the executive branch … a lotta different interests in play there. And, of course, Congress is still in session … do you see any chance that anyone can close the deal through legislative means? Barney?

Here’s the PPA ED John Pappas giving a little more insight on what this date means to the folks in Washington DC, and what the PPA is doing to fight it. But damn, with the clock having been called, will it be enough?

Don’t forget to vote — right over there, on your right. I mean sheeyot, if you can’t click a button a couple inches away … then maybe we’re due to get exactly what we deserve?

Look for tells on Pappas’ face for any reads on how he might really see the situation.

A $200 charity tourney in Florida is hardly big news, but I find it interesting when it’s a fundraiser put on by police, to raise money for a fellow officer (who has ALS).

First off, I just get pissy — because why can’t Texas see what we are missing by being so anti-poker. I mean sheeot, the state of Texas is building what may well become one of the biggest non-Vegas casinos in all of America right across the border in Oklahoma … because of the belief that poker offends Republican primary voters’ moral sensibilities. I mean either we don’t believe that, and just are stupid for letting OK make all the $$, or we do believe that, and therefore are being pretty unneighborly (at least from a Christian perspective) by letting our good friends to the north destroy themselves — and our people — with poker.

But I digress … this tournament reminds me why poker is different from so many other similar political issues — and it’s stuff “our side” should remember when trying to push through our political agenda.

As far as “alternative” political issues … the one most in line with poker right now would seem to be marijuana. They too are flooding Washington DC with supportive letters — and are making essentially the same plea: regulate and tax us, please!

While I’m not so sure potheads are the best company to be in, politically — they’re making moves, but it’s taking decades, because you know, potheads are seldom in a hurry — there is such a clear difference here. And that is you would never see a group of cops hosting a “bake” sale to raise money for a comrade-in-need … as good of an idea as that may be.

Though a few cops playing cards certainly isn’t any deal-maker on the political front, separating poker from other forms of “vice” seems to me would be an essential part of any plan to legitimize the game … so this helps. Save Captain Sargent!

Many of you often give me a hard time because of my aversion to “statistics” and “data” … and though generally I don’t care about appeasing the peons “readers”, I found some of this info below on the “interesting” and “informative” side.

So let’s kick it Harper’s Index-style, shall we?

Poker-related letters sent to members of Congress in July 2009: > 150,000
Poker-related letters sent to Congress in 2008: 77,000
Issues other than health care reform that have generated more letters to Congress in 2009 (including war in Iraq, recession, and gas prices): 0
Meetings scheduled between PPA representatives and Congressional offices in a two-day period: 110
Meetings missed by either PPA reps or Congressional staffers: 6
Number of lobbyists engaged in National Poker Week initiative: about 40
Number of consulting firms retained: 7, I think
Number of Players in the PPA tournament benefitting the USO: 180ish
Wounded vets competing: 31
Patients who qualified for seats via semi-regular tournaments at Walter Reed Hospital: 25
Money donated by the PPA to the USO up front: $25,000
Amount added to donation from $100 rebuys: $10,000
Rebuys from Annie Duke: 15
Rebuys from Howard Lederer: > 10
Rebuys for veterans put up by the Interactive Gaming Council: 10
Noted poker pros competing: Not totally sure, but probably about 10-15
Members of Congress competing: 7
Highest finish by a wounded Iraq war veteran: 1st

I couldn’t resist posting the view of where I’m blogging from. There’s something quite serene about sitting on grass in pinstripe slacks, leaning against a tree, with the view seen here …

I’m in a park just outside the Senate office building, where I just had a meeting with a rising* Kay Bailey Hutchison staffer. Didn’t get to pitch the future governor of Texas senator herself — today is a crazy health care day around the Capitol — but we did get to educate her office on a Senate online poker bill that will supposedly be introduced in the next week or two. This bill — a re-introduction of Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) S-3616 — will be “like the Barney Frank bill, only it’s a cleaner bill … without any political bullshit,” one lobbyist explained to me.

Anyhow, the meeting went well, or at least well-ish. It was clear that KBH’s office hadn’t yet given any consideration to poker nor online gambling … so we got to lead out, and counteract the opposition arguments before they were even made. One noted positive — her staff has already been hit by a mini flood of letters supporting all our anti-UIGEA initiatives, so they know it’s an issue that matters to a sizable enough constituency to make it matter to elected officials, who apparently are very aware of any issue that potentially leaves them losing voters in bulk.

With that said, it also became clear that Hutchison (R-TX) will not be leading the way on this bill. Her staff was most interested in where Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) currently stands. Now while we know him as a previous bad guy, he and other UIGEA strongmen are apparently “coming around”. That’s not to say they’re suddenly going to switch teams, but Howard Lederer specifically made some persuasive arguments that made him far less likely to vehemently oppose us. The estimated $3 billion a year (which doesn’t even count the corporate taxes American-based online poker companies would pay) is resonating loud and clear, particularly this week as those wanting to position themselves as fiscal conservatives are trying to come up with a way to support health care despite its $200 billion shortfall. And being pegged as people who turned down tax revenue generated on behalf of protecting citizens and internet freedoms alike, they know may not sit well with voters.

More…

Jeff over at LegalizePokerinTexas has updated his site to make it even easier for you to reach out to the 13 key members of the Texas House of Representatives who currently hold the fate of poker in their hands.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to let them know that you’d really like to see our issues — HB 222 — put to a vote on the House floor so poker players from the great state of Texas can finally have their say.

Here’s the new link:

http://legalizepokerintexas.com/?issues=HB222

Click that, and you’ll see a button for “calendars committee” … click that, too, and it will instacheck the right people … so then, all you have to do is press send. You are, of course, welcome to customize the message to your personal liking.

We’re almost there, gang … we’re driving down the field … we need this first down.

While looking through the list … I realized there are a few people on that committee whom we might need to be extra ass-kissy persuasive with. Most specifically:

McCall

Rep. Brian McCall (R-Plano) — He’s the chair, so he has the power to make our lives difficult. He’s also a very moderate Republican … so he’s open to our ideas, but you may recall we (poker people) unpleasantly bumped heads with him back in 2007. He doesn’t respond well to threats of not voting for him because he won’t go a certain way on a single issue. So the key with McCall is to let him know that yes, this may be a single issue that matters to you personally, but really it might well matter to Texans who don’t even play poker — because of the revenue it stands to generate, the police and DA resources it stands to free up, the state-pride freedom it represents, and the protection it offers citizens who are attending unsafe underground games or even being robbed in their own homes.

More…

Selective aggression … that’s the key here. And it’s again time to make a move. This time, we need to hit up the Calendars Committee. What we’re asking for with them is to get a vote on HB 222 and get it soon. I haven’t crafted my letter yet, but will do so today … in a nutshell I’ll be running down the basics in a single sentence — this bill protects citizens, honors personal freedoms, brings back some pride to Texas, and along with it a bunch of money being dumped in Oklahoma. Will also remind them that this bill has the overwhelming support of the people as well as police and prosecutors, who would greatly appreciate a law that is up-to-date with the 21st century.

Will probably end with something reminding them that this is a perfect example of the kind of sensible government legislation that will show our representatives are capable of looking beyond any controversial rhetoric and doing the right thing … and hey, if we get a vote and we’re wrong, we’ll stop with the email barrages. After all, this IS a grass-roots effort by the people, which makes it very different from the big-money casino bills pending … and they should recognize that.

But really — because this is grass roots and we don’t have the money to pay for a lobbyist to be glad-handing in the back hallways on behalf of HB 222 — we need you Texas-loving folks to get to work over the next 24 hours. (We’ll probably call on you two more times over the course of the next month). We need to hit them up and hit them hard … this is where we got to in 2007, and we did convince them to put us on the calendar, but not high up enough to ever get to a vote on the House floor.

Honestly, for the whole process, it hasn’t been more “on us” than it is right now. Here’s the link to the easy-email generator for Texas poker legislation.

Specifically, the people you should be sending this go-round to (with district # in parentheses) are:

Brian McCall (66) – Chair
Eddie Lucio III (38) – Vice-chair

Norma Chavez (76)
Garnet Coleman (147)
Byron Cook (8)
Brandon Creighton (16)
Charlie Geren (99)
Jim Keffer (60)
Lois Kolkhorst (13)
Edmund Kuempel (44)
Jim McReynolds (12)
Allan Ritter (21)
Burt Solomons (65)

A gaming columnist for the LVRJ agrees with BJ … don’t expect changes to online gambling laws anytime soon, simply because Congress is busy with more pressing matters:

After checking with Washington, D.C., lobbyist contacts and casino company operators dialed into Capitol Hill, Simkins put steep odds on the issue seeing any light.

“We see little reason for investors to try to play this near-term,” Simkins said.

Meanwhile, I had almost forgotten there was an internet gambling bill pending in Texas … an effort to make the Texas Lotto playable online. (Ha! Just wait til Texas banks try to transfer that money around.) From the Beaumont Enterprise:

PRO:

Internet gambling might seem like a big step to some Texans, but it’s not. More and more of our modern society is moving to the Internet, from shopping to news to entertainment. Gambling is part of this matrix. There’s no logical reason to wall off the ‘net from something that’s clearly popular with millions of consumers.

CON:

OUR VIEW: NO INTERNET GAMBLING FOR TEXAS
Internet gambling, especially when targeted at young adults, would cross a moral line that Texas needs to stay away from. That makes gambling a little too easy. It increases the chances that compulsive gamblers would waste money and establish bad gambling patterns for young adults.

OK, fair enough … you’re entitled to your moralist point of view, despite what statistics suggest. In fact, I’ll even assure you that it absolutely WILL be harmful to compulsive gamblers … which represent .6 percent of people online . How ’bout we compromise? We’ll say no to playing the Texas lottery on the internet if you say yes to brick-and-mortar poker rooms? Cool? Awesome … cool.

Politics is so easy.

The April 9th edition of The Poker Beat included a discussion about the possibility of poker legislation that would repeal the UIGEA, allowing companies like PartyPoker back into the U.S. Dan (the Wolfman?) made some solid arguments, but when he mentioned that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has the know-how to slyly attach pro-gaming legislation to another sure-thing bill to get it passed, he may not have been aware that Frank has declared his intent to complete the mission of repealing the UIGEA not with political trickery but rather a stand-alone bill.

In a conversation with The Hill, Frank said that attaching his bill to other legislation — as was done with the UIGEA — would be “inappropriate.”

“I want to do this with hearings, discussions, and votes,” he said.

While Frank’s desire to handle it on the House floor as opposed to in the back hallways is being praised by some, others see it as dangerous to the bill, as an intense focus/debate on it could make it more difficult to pass.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Frank has been on UIGEA-tilt since 2006, as was evident by his introduction of H.R. 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA), in April of 2007. He has likely been calculating the best way to repeal the UIGEA after fighting against it since its passage, and his decision to reintroduce H.R. 2046 as a standalone was not made lightly. Could he have some Republican aces up his sleeve? Does the recently-quiet PPA have a master plan to garner support for the bill? All of this remains to be seen, but methinks Frank would not have been so vocal – to mainstream media nonetheless – since January of his intention to repeal the UIGEA if he did not have a solid plan with which to proceed … which at this point, he is saying begins after Congress returns from their Easter break on April 20th.

Our opposition to HB 222 in Texas said pretty clearly that their whole argument relies on the skill vs. luck debate. That, I think, is “good for poker”. Because while Christian Life Coalitions and Texas Eagle Forums continue to bring out the same old “but you could get dealt a 2-3″ argument — actually, I guess they changed it a little bit, because in 2007 they were saying 2-2 — they have yet to show one piece of hard evidence backing up this claim that it as chance-based as the lottery or bingo (which, incidentally, are both legal in Texas).

Meanwhile, anyone who looks at the game (courts included) and talks to people who have played it for a mere 20 minutes understand the luck factor in poker is no different than in stocks, real estate, Scrabble, or life. But because there are some people who insist on pressing their moral agenda on the basis of a provably unintelligent argument, a software security company called Cigital just released a study of 103 million poker hands to counter the luck claims of the people who insist on using just two:

http://www.cigital.com/resources/poker/100M-Hand-AnalysisReport.pdf

A synopsis of their findings:

Cigital will release a report outlining a study of 103 million hands of Texas Hold ‘Em, which includes compelling statistics showing the outcomes of the games are largely determined by the players’ decisions rather than chance. The results of this study are of great importance to the legal community, where many cases involving poker come down to the question of whether the game is one of predominant skill or chance. As a game of skill, poker should not be categorized as “gambling” under the law.

As we know, HB 222 actually isn’t up for a vote until next week … but it’s looking strong. Here’s The Dallas Morning News’ take on yesterday’s meeting:

Texas Poker Players Willing to Ante Up Tax Money for Legalization

As is always the case in these mainstream media stories, check the comments for a pulse of the people. In this situation, so far, there are 14 comments supporting the bill (with 41 thumbs-ups), and 0 against (with 1 thumbs-down).

Could this thing be any more obvious? It’s a big matter of technicalities and lobbying and money and stuff at this point — along with some political infighting between proponents of the bigger casino bill and a horse-racing slot machine bill (which has been unsuccessfully fought for for about, oh, like 12 years now?). For good measure, Jose Menendez did extend an olive branch to the horse-track people Wednesday, letting them know that poker is indeed happy to help their bottom line — and you can look at other states where bringing poker rooms into the race tracks to get a sense of the many millions they do bring in.

That’s all good and cool — go horse-track poker! — but at the same time, why does politics have to be so hard (and expensive)? I’ve got a solution that should save everyone time and money, and could fit easily on just about any ballot for anything:

Poker in Texas
☐ Yes
☐ No

Isn’t politics at least in part about representing the will of the people? Because we already clearly know the answer to the above question.

A lot’s been going on behind the scenes in Austin regarding HB 222 (as well as a racino slots bill and a general casino bill in Texas) … so hopefully we’ll have much more to say throughout the day and next month. We can’t win legal poker today, but we can lose in the Licensing and Administration committee. Michele Lewis is at the capitol right now getting ready to testify on poker’s behalf. I sent her a little strategic encouragement yesterday:

The fate of Texas’ future is all in your hands, Michele.

You’ll do great. A good freedom-loving, charity fundraising mom like you deserves a place to play at home. Though I am sure Pitts & Co. will prep you appropriately, you might consider playing the woman card, too … just because you have kids to take care of doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the same opportunities to either make money or engage in a recreational activities that your sisters in Louisiana and Oklahoma have.

P.S. You forgot Erick Lindgren!

I wish she could Twitter in her updates … but Pokerati isn’t quite that sophisticated yet … but we’ll try to keep you updated, and maybe explain a little bit about where things stand before and after today. But regardless … Go Michele! Go Poker! And go Texas!

UPDATE: Michele is not actually in Austin yet … she’s en route. Hearing is at 2 pm central.

As we’ve talked about before … success for poker in Congress will require more than just being on the right side of the law … it means convincing senators and representatives that we even belong on their radar … and ultimately are worth risking some political capital for on poker’s behalf. We already have tons of Congresspeople on our side. And tons clearly against. Now it’s a matter of not just swaying the uncommitted middle our way, but also convincing them these issues even matter.

click to enlarge

To this extent, as Congressfolk come back to session this week, the PPA is taking out full-page ads (above) in the three most relevant rags to DC insiders — The Hill, Roll Call, and Politico — parlaying the exposure of cheating scandals in the online poker industry into an important message about the need to effectively protect US citizens.

Good stuff, I gotta think.

Below’s the breakdown of who voted how on HR 6870.

30 for
19 against
21 did not vote

Rather encouraging, too, when you see how many DNVs previously voted FOR … (even Ron Paul, the sponsor of this bill’s predeccessor, didn’t weigh in this time) … and realize that while some NAY’s were persuaded to change their vote, no decisions were reversed the other way. Nice job by Barney Frank, the PPA, and others working on poker’s sound fiscal policy’s behalf, especially with something that relieves at least a little bit of undue pressure on the beleaguered American banking system.

Poker is having an affair with politics and the mainstream media, and it seems to be one of those flings…not sure where it started or where it will end, or even what it means, but enjoying it nonetheless.

Sure, the UIGEA was the first to act, but it was the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) who bought the drinks and started the bigger conversation. Most recently, the poker lobbying organization did something that didn’t seem like a big move in the beginning but is turning out to be an ingenious one. They established two charity tournaments to benefit the Paralyzed Vets of America, one to be played at each of the political conventions. The Democratic National Convention was the stage for the first, where none other than Ben Affleck won it. The second event will take place tomorrow in Minnesota, close to the site of the Republican National Convention. Both events are getting wide mainstream media coverage, i.e. Bloomberg, Politico, The Wall Street Journal, and The Denver Post.

The poker/politics affair goes even further, as poker has also become the analogy of choice for many writers and reporters well outside of the poker community. Terms like “poker face” and “all in” are finding their way into articles about Barack Obama and John McCain, either because Obama has been known to play poker or simply because poker is a good analogy. For example:

Chicago Sun Times: Does Barack Obama Really Have a Poker Face?

The Times Herald: America Needs a Decent Poker Player

Lastly, poker veteran Bob Ciaffone got a nice write-up in The Bay City Times when he recently traveled to Denver as an Obama delegate.

Had a pleasant chat with PPA boss John Pappas yesterday about the state of poker legislation. “We have a new website!” he says. OK, that quote’s semi-made up, but he definitely wanted to pimp the Poker Players Alliance’s new forums, benefit packages, and webtronic goodies. Yeah, yeah, website uh-huh … I didn’t tell him that I get most of my PPA on MySpace, where they share rank with Ed, The Poker Atlas, and RawVegas TV.*

Anyhow, in hearing about what they’re trying to achieve, I came to realize just how much progress the PPA has made. There are currently five bills pending in Congress specific to our issue. You can say all you want about the “special interests” … but that’s what we are. And frankly a rather small one in the Beltway schema. Yet those five bills come with 98 unique sponsors — meaning nearly a quarter of the House of Representatives are more than familiar with poker causes and have affirmatively declared themselves on our side. That’s pretty impressive progress over the course of 18 months.

With that said, Pappas doesn’t necessarily expect to see a legally enforceable undoing of the UIGEA this year. Nor do I, nor does Lavigne in Austin, nor does anyone actively working toward that goal. This being a presidential election year, with so many big big issues in play and seats at stake, Congress just isn’t gonna get around to making the world safe for online poker in ‘08. I could be wrong on this — and hope I am — but I’m not. Fortunately the PPA leadership and lobbyists seem to recognize that hoping is seldom a good strategy … and while there’s always a chance poker could hit a political miracle on the turn and river, the PPA should shove all-in! what’s important now for the PPA is putting us in a position to succeed in 2009, when table conditions are sure to have changed.

* Pauly, dude, when are you gonna get on MySpace?