Supposedly, Barney Frank\’s HR 2267 — the Internet Gambling, Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act — has a hearing this upcoming Wednesday in Barney Frank\’s House Financial Services Committee. What its about is hard to say — we know it\’s not the all-important \”mark-up\”, but beyond that, little else … It\’s been put on the schedule with little fanfare and no witness list (which is kinda abnormal, but not totally).
The bill itself seems like it might be struggling, as might have been suspected in a contentious election year. But poker opponents are rallying their troops, with Focus on the Family getting their members to voice their staunch opposition:
The bills represent the most aggressive expansion of gambling in American history.
The instant accessibility and anonymity of Internet gambling sites will only accelerate addiction and increase the negative social and fiscal costs imposed on U.S. citizens, families and nonprofits.
Research shows gambling is already the fastest growing addiction among the Millennial generation.
Congress voted four years ago to pass the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to combat, not encourage, these costs.
What we know and can prove about groups like FOF — they lie.
You can see they\’re even trying to encourage their usual Congressional supporters to not risk losing the all-important Tea-Party vote by claiming our argument about the money online gambling generates as their own, simply flipping things around to contend these bills — despite a recent study about the 10s of thousands of jobs and 10s of billions in tax revenue that licensed and regulated online gambling would create — will \”cost\” America money.
What jerks. Hope your God is a vengeful one.
Perhaps that\’s why Full Tilt has taken the unprecedented move of publicly stating its support for these poker-friendly pieces of legislation, and is calling on its players to reach out to Washington DC. In cooperation with the PPA, Full Tilt (dot-net) has launched a new site — www.fulltilt.standupforpoker.com — that features a video of Howard Lederer encouraging players to take action.
According to Focus on the Family\’s shell site \”CitizenLink\”, Congress will be looking at two bills on Wednesday — both Frank\’s bill and the McDermott bill, HR 2268 — with markup planned for a week later, July 28. I\’m not so sure that part is certain, actually — poker politicos are saying only that markup will be \”soon\”.
But if it is just a week-and-a-half away … great! And if not, more reason to be concerned about what poker\’s political enemies will stoop to do in an effort to make matters seem even more critical to their membership — which has the influence, if not the power — to derail us.
